


To Fly Free

by LovesFrogs



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brotherly Love, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Introspection, Mother-Son Relationship, Non-Sexual Slavery, Palpatine is a creep, Slavery, Tatooine (Star Wars), Tatooine Slave Culture, Wow I might actually update this again, ahsoka's original outfit is ill-advised in many ways, but it does stand on its own as of now, here have some Padme!, inspired by fialleril, just a little, podracing analogies, save the tuskens, this was just a huge excuse to write about fialleril's Ekkreth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22324753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovesFrogs/pseuds/LovesFrogs
Summary: Anakin is nothing but a toddler in slavery when his connection to the Force begins to cause his Mom all sorts of stress. Grandmother, the old wise woman, reminds them what's important. Things go from there."I will remember," says Anakin. And he does.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 102
Kudos: 1119
Collections: SW Especially Satisfying Stories, Yubi SW





	1. The One You've Been Waiting For

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Shape-Changer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4678835) by [Fialleril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/pseuds/Fialleril). 



> Well... this happened. I blame the new Star Wars movies. If people like it (or if I decide I like it) I might add more, but for now this is a oneshot I wrote instead of sleeping. Come one, come all!

When Anakin Skywalker is one year old, lugged around on his mother’s back wrapped in an old scrap of cloth, he cries for a shiny rock on the ground and it flies into his hand. No one notices. His mother is a slave, as is Anakin himself, and no one truly looks at those who are beneath them. Not on Tatooine.

By the time he’s two years old, Anakin can make little trinkets float around for his amusement, and he has become a menace to his mother in public as she tries to impress upon him the slave values of secrecy and hidden things. He is an uncanny child, with few words and an unblinking stare, but he laughs freely with his mother and the Hutt’s other slaves. She would mourn him deeply if anything were to happen, whether because of his talents or because of the unrelenting life of a slave on a desert planet.

“What am I going to do with you, little Ani,” she mutters to herself as a tiny dust tornado surrounds her son and causes him to sneeze.

Anakin is three, and has finally learned that some things can only be shared in the privacy of their section of the slave quarters, when his mother walks in on him vacantly staring at the wall and levitating both himself and everything else in the room. His mouth is open, normally bright blue eyes unfocused and dull, and it chills her to the bone. It takes a long hour and a half of pleading words and gentle touches to bring him back to himself, and she is terrified for her beloved boy. The next day before bed, she takes his hands and sits them both down on the sand. 

“Anakin,” she says. “What were you doing yesterday? What did it feel like?”

“Thinking,” says Anakin, “couldn’t stop. It was pwetty.” And he smiles.

She doesn’t know what to make of this, but Shmi Skywalker has heard desert tales before, by the light of a forbidden fire. Mystical and strange things are not unheard of in the whispers of Ekkreth the Trickster or Leia the mighty Dragon or the thousand other stories passed down by Grandmothers in the secret language of the slaves. So to Grandmother she goes.

“Oh, child,” says Grandmother to Anakin. “You are connected to something greater. Power like that can carry you off into the sky and burn you out, or it can run you into the ground and crash you down.”

“Like a podwaceow?” says Anakin with a wide, toothy grin.

Grandmother chuckles, creaky as the dry sand. “Yes, child, just exactly like a podracer. You must learn to be a good pilot for your power.”

“Wow.” Anakin bounces up and down, making what are apparently podracer noises.

“What should I do?” Shmi wrings her hands. “Can he learn to control it?”

Grandmother eyes the boy. The wrinkles and creases of her face deepen, and she hums a low note in thought. “Don’t go to high, and don’t fall too low. He needs connections to keep him pulled toward the ground, but he also needs freedom and exercise in his gift to boost him up in the air.” She trails off, milky eyes focusing on something Shmi can’t see. Anakin is giggling to himself and Shmi pulls him absently into her lap, smoothing a hand over his little toddler curls. The sit silently and respectfully as Grandmother thinks.

Her distant eyes do not waver, but she finally speaks once more. “Love him, and teach him to love. Don’t let him rise too high on the power or it will consume him, but don’t try to take it away or he will even more surely be lost. It is a part of him. Fight fear and hate, and give him room to grow.”

“Of course, Grandmother,” Shmi says, wondering how she could do anything else. Who would not teach their sweet child to love? So they bid the wise woman goodbye and Shmi carries on, introducing Anakin to little playmates when they both can spare the time and assuring him at every turn that she loves him to the stars and back.

Every once in a while Anakin gets lost in his power again. It goes from a rare occurance to a monthly, and then a weekly one as he grows from three years to four. Shmi continues to call him back, but she worries all the same, fearing the day she will no longer be able to bring him down.

He comes to her himself after supper one night. “Is something wrong with me?” 

She gives his shoulder a squeeze. “Of course not, Ani. You’re just… connected in a way that some other people aren’t. But you know what?” She bends down beside him with a smile.

“What?” he says, wide eyed and curious. Shmi wishes she knew what she was doing.

“We’re going to practice. Every night before you go to bed, we’re going to sit here for a few minutes and you can let your mind go to that place, and maybe then it will stop happening so suddenly.”

Anakin nods, and Shmi crosses her fingers behind her back. She’s not supposed to fight the power, so maybe embracing and guiding it will work.

Luckily, it does. As long as Anakin remembers to focus on his power before bed for a few minutes each night, he no longer gets blindsided at random intervals.

When Anakin is five, not long after they’ve been lost to a new Master in a bet, he meets Kitster. He’s delighted by his new best friend, and he knows he’s gained another tether to pull him back to earth. With Mom’s approval, he swears Kitster to secrecy and shows him what he can do. 

(“Anything real that a slave does is secret, Ani.” 

“I know, I know, but just watch this, will you?”)

Kitster is delighted by Anakin’s talents. “How do you do that?” he asks. “When did you learn? Can you do more?”

_Can you do more?_

Anakin doesn’t know. He and Kitster start experimenting in the little increments of time between their duties, levitating objects, hiding things in plain sight, whatever they can think of. As he practices, things get easier and easier. He wonders if there’s a limit at all to what he can do. He starts giving his chores the slip, or getting them done more quickly by risking the use of his special power, and runs out to the open desert to test what he can do alone. 

(He practices where he can, but he is ever careful to stay within the boundaries set by the explosive somewhere in his body. The leash of a slave is not long.)

No one says anything about it. Who is there to notice a ragged little slave boy running about on Tatooine while his mother is scrubbing sand out of her eyes and his best friend is working his fingers bloody? Anakin levitates a boulder. He jumps onto the roof of a hut. He starts making pieces of scrap unnoticeable and hauls them home to work on a podracer of his very own with no one the wiser. 

He’s six when he realizes he can do something about the other slave children who are a little worse off and rarely have enough to eat. Anakin, following generations of slaves before him, can already perform sleight of hand that can fool a Master.

A girl called Yara, one year younger and 30 pounds lighter than Anakin, takes the ration pack with trembling fingers. “Where did you get this?”

“Don’t worry, it’s mine,” he tells her. “We have enough.”

It’s mine because I stole it, he doesn’t say. I’ll be back with more in a few days. She hears him anyway because telling lies with the truth is a slave’s second language, learned alongside the secret language of their Grandmothers that the Masters cannot understand.

Various establishments around Mos Eisley are convinced they have a vermin problem. The slave children eat their fill every four or five days and do not correct the assumption. They look out for each other and they are always glad to see Anakin. He loves all of them like his siblings, and they care for him in return, but no one ever challenges Kitster’s place as Anakin’s Best Friend.

Anakin is seven when he feels in his blood that Kitster is receiving a vicious beating. He abandons his work (he’ll deal with Master Watto’s consequences later) and sprints through the streets. No one stops him. No one notices dusty urchins scrambling beneath their feet on Tatooine. 

His power swirls around him as he moves, faster and faster, until he rushes through Kitster’s Master’s door and throws himself in front of his friend. 

“Stop hurting him!” he cries. The Master goes to shove him out of the way with a grunt, but Anakin taps into the power around him and holds his ground. “No! Stop it, he’s just a kid!” He takes a step forward and the Master actually backs away. It shoots a vindictive pleasure though him that he’s never felt before, both exciting and grimy at the same time. Anakin could use his powers on this man who hurt Kitster. He could drop the ceiling on him or kick and punch him with all the force that is gathered around him. He could propel rocks at him far faster than people can throw.

“Ani? Ani!” Kitster’s voice pulls him back to himself, and Anakin blinks. Right. His best friend needs his help.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and helps Kitster shuffle out the door and back to his little corner in his Master’s slave quarters. Kitster relaxes, but sends him a worried glance when he thinks Anakin can’t see.

That night, Mom takes his calloused hands in her tough, scarred ones and sits them both down on the sand. “Kitster told me what happened today,” she says.

Anakin isn’t sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, so he nods and stays quiet, examining a freckle on his ankle like he’s never seen it before.

“Anakin Ekkreth.”

He looks up. She’s spoken in Amattaka, the slave language. He doesn’t often hear his true name: Anakin, the one who brings the rain, and Ekkreth, the Trickster and Sky Walker who brings freedom to the desert children. Theirs is a slave name, taken when someone long ago was sold young and could not remember their family, but it’s also a name with secret, quiet power that the Masters always overlooked.

“I’m so proud of you.”

“What?” he can’t help but say, responding in the same language she’s speaking. “But I almost used my power on Kitster’s _Depur!_ I could have given it away and gotten in trouble, or gotten Kitster hurt!”

He doesn’t much care if the Depur got hurt, and Mom notices but doesn’t comment. There’s no slave alive who would argue in favor of a harmful Depur.

“You almost did,” she agrees. “But you did not. You listened to Kitster and you remembered what was important. I don’t think you would have hurt that Depur more than you had to even if you had forgotten. Ani, you are not a cruel being.”

“I could fight back!” he protests.

“You could. But you have a spirit like the rain, giving life and freedom to things thought dead,” she says. “Your power is very big, Anakin, but your heart is even bigger, and as long as that is true I am not worried about you at all.”

He nods, but then something occurs to him. “What if my power gets bigger? What if my heart isn’t big enough?”

“Hearts grow,” says Mom. “Power always has a limit, but a heart never does.” 

Anakin makes a face. What does that even mean? He knows Mom is very wise, but can’t she say things like a normal person? She’s going to end up as bad as Grandmother someday.

Mom smirks at his expression. “Do you know Ayra Whitesun?”

He rolls his eyes. “Everyone knows her. She has more kids than everyone else put together!”

“Maybe not quite that many, but yes. Do you think she loves any of her children less than the others?”

Anakin thinks about this for a while. “No,” he says finally. “They are all loved, even if they are not happy. I’ve seen their japor.”

“Yes,” says Mom. “That’s because every time Ayra has a new baby her heart grows new love for them. The heart doesn’t stop with a certain number of people, but grows to fit everyone and everything that you want it to. You can grow more love for one person in your heart, or lose some for someone else if they betray you. The number of people doesn’t matter as much as the amount of love, and you already have so much love in your heart. I can see it.”

Anakin thinks about this. “But what happens when someone has more power than heart?”

Mom sighs. “There are older kids who are mean to you.”

“Yes.”

“Those children have the power to hurt you. Either their words hurt your feelings or their hands and feet give you injuries. Respect is the smallest form of love. People give it when they realize that someone deserves the same rights they do, that every being matters to somebody. Those kids who are mean to you, they like their power, and they want to make it bigger by trying to take yours. They forget to love, even though love is the greatest source of power in all the universe.”

Anakin thinks he finally understands. “Hearts grow with love like the cacti. They don’t steal anything. But people can only get more power by stealing, like--” his eyes widen, “like Depur! He takes power from Ekkreth when he makes him a slave!”

“Yes,” says Mom. “But Ekkreth takes his freedom and power back every time, and shares it with the children of Ar-Amu.”

“Because his heart is big enough to share. And when they all share they have the most power of all.” Anakin turns this over in his mind, but it is an awfully confusing lesson.

“Power given freely is the strongest of all,” says Mom. “But that’s a conversation for another day.”

She stands, switching back to Basic and helping him up. “Time for bed, Ani. I love you.”

He gives her a quick hug. “I will remember,” he promises with a grin, as if this was another traditional story told by a Grandmother around a secret circle. She laughs and shoos him away.

“Go get some sleep!”

.  
.  
.

Anakin’s life is hard and unforgiving and cruel, but he does not forget. He has spoken to Grandmother before, and she told him the same thing she told his mother: “You are like a podracer. People you love can pull you toward the ground. The more you have, the better off you are.”

“Won’t they make me crash?”

“They can,” she said bluntly. “If one of you pulls to hard it will steer your speeder toward the ground. You must trust them not to, and be careful not to hold them so close that you hurt them or yourself accidentally.” 

Anakin frowned. “So love is bad?”

“Not at all, little one, but everything worthwhile has a little bit of risk.”

He nodded slowly. 

“Now,” said Grandmother, “What happens if a podracer flies too high?”

“It sparks out or crashes against the barrier above the track,” said Anakin.

“Yes. Now if your power goes too high, you will get so far away that you won’t be able to see or help anyone on the ground. Eventually, you will fall and crash just the same. Your job is simply to stay in the middle of these two things so that you don’t hit the ground.”

Anakin doesn’t hit the ground or fly off into nothingness. He doesn’t even come close. He has Kitster and Mom, with whom he has exchanged carved jappor snippets full of blessings and love. Not to mention all the other slave children he still steals food for when he can. He works hard and Watto isn’t so bad, really, not compared to some of the other Depur he’s heard about. His dream is to win Mom’s freedom and then his own by winning with his homemade racer. 

Anakin is nine years old, and he gets his chance earlier than expected when the strangers come. 

Anyone can see that they’re outsiders, but that’s not uncommon at all on Tatooine. Anakin spots them on his way home to shelter from the storm everyone can see coming. For some reason, the outsiders have not yet realized, and they don’t have time to get back to the ship that landed way off in the dunes anymore. Some boys down the street are laughing at them, waiting to see their fear when the sand blows in.

 _My heart is bigger than my power_ , Anakin thinks, and offers them shelter. They barely make it back in time, but Mom just rolls her eyes at him fondly when she sees the strays he’s picked up on the way. She shares what they have, and tells the strangers what they want to know.

One of them is a Jedi. Anakin has heard stories of them almost as amazing as the stories of Ekkreth and Leia, and he is desperately excited. Qui Gon Jinn is kind and cool and he helps Anakin enter in his first ever pod race!

The other humanoid is a beautiful girl, several years older than Anakin. He sort of accidentally grows some love in his heart for her, and feels the irrational urge to impress her. Mom is laughing at him on the inside, he can tell, but Padme is so kind and soft, nothing like the old calluses and sharp sand of Tatooine. He wants to see whatever kind of place can grow a person like her someday.

“Trust your feelings,” Qui Gon tells him before the race. Anakin nods. He has always done so. Then he looks into Mom’s eyes, loving and worried and so, so proud.

 _“Bring your beautiful heart back to me,”_ she says in Amattaka. 

_“I will.”_

Qui Gon looks on curiously, but neither of them bother to explain. Anakin hugs her and walks to his homemade racer, head held high. Padme smiles and waves, and Anakin flashes her a grin. There is a spring in his step as he climbs into the cockpit.

As soon as he gets behind the controls, Anakin sinks halfway into his power. He’s done this once or twice, but this is the first time he does it on purpose. If he goes too far in it the rest of the world will fade and he’ll be useless, but only halfway…

His power sings around him, quieting his thoughts and letting him focus on the task at hand. It feels like some strong premonition is guiding his hands and telling him the best thing to do, as if Ekkreth Sky Walker is whispering in his ear how best to escape the Depur.

He wins the race. He knew he could.

“Well done,” says Qui Gon, but Anakin is looking at Mom. She smiles at him sady.

“You did it,” she whispers when they hug. “You’re free.”

Anakin shakes his head. _”You’re_ free. What would I do all alone?”

“No,” she says. “The Jedi wants to take you with him, I can tell. And if that will get you out of here faster, I will do this for you. You are not the only one with a heart full of love, Ani.”

He wants to protest, but he can see the resolve on her face. “Okay,” he says, pulling back. “But I will miss you, and love you forever.”

“I will too.” She smiles. 

Mom is right, of course. She almost always is, and she and Anakin hug as fiercely as they ever have. (They have always hugged like they’re saying goodbye. Families are separated every day when one is a slave on Tatooine.) “I’ll come back for you when I’m a Jedi,” he whispers in her ear. “I’m going to free everyone.”

“I believe you,” says Mom. “But don’t forget to enjoy being free, and let some people into your beautiful heart.”

“I will remember.”

“I will remember,” she repeats back before she turns him around and lets him go. Anakin doesn’t look back.

(Two japor snippets carved with love hang at his side. He doesn’t have to look back.)

They take him to the Jedi Temple, a vast building in the middle of a city the size of a planet. It’s got all the most modern luxuries known to the galaxy, and yet the only thing Anakin can feel is how cold and alone it seems compared with the hut he shared with Mom back home. He feels rather the same way about the Jedi council he meets soon after, and thinks about what Grandmother told him once, years ago. _So high they can no longer see the little people on the ground is right,_ he thinks.

He doesn’t quite understand all the unspoken messages that are obviously being thrown around in the council room, but of course he knows they’re there. Unspoken words are something he’s known since birth. It’s obvious the Jedi don’t like him, aside from Qui Gon and maybe his grown-up student, but somehow Anakin winds up on a mission to Naboo with them anyway.

“Are you an angel?” he asks Padme on the way. Mom said that Angels were beautiful beings who made people happy and peaceful as they died. She is beautiful and unworn the way nothing on Tatooine really is, and he is almost afraid this is all some kind of dream. Maybe he is going to die, and she is here to help.

“No,” she laughs, “but I am your friend.”

Anakin nods and shakes her hand importantly, just like real, free adults seem to do. Not a dream then, or a hallucination. Good to know.

(Later he sort of wishes it _was_ all a dream, when Qui Gon dies and Obi-Wan’s eyes go dark with pain and grief, even as his expression remains unnaturally still. On the other hand, flying a real ship was as amazing as he’d imagined, and Padme gave him a little metal piece that will let them talk to each other when he goes off to train. “That’s what friends are for,” she says, when he stammers out a thank you. Her smile is still the best thing he’s ever seen, and his heart grows even bigger than before.)

Obi-Wan takes Anakin as an apprentice, which feels as right as anything can in the grand Jedi Temple that is so tall Anakin can’t see the real people from the windows. A place where he must continue calling people “Master” out loud, though he has never called anyone by that name in his thoughts. They tell him that attachments are the root of fear and anger and evil, but Anakin knows they’ve got it all backwards and inside-out. He hasn’t even seen a single Grandmother in their supposedly wise council anyway!

(Grandmother was never worried about whether his power was Dark or Light. She only wanted him to control it and temper it with his love and selflessness. Anakin considers her much above these unfeeling “Masters” in every respect.)

Slave Masters don’t like to be told they’re wrong. Anakin will never tell them, but the Master Jedi are so much like the Masters on Tatooine that he never even bothers to correct what they’re saying about love. He tries to let the kids his age know so that they don’t fly too high, but they just laugh or roll their eyes, so he concludes that they already have done so and doesn’t say much else to any of them.

He does have a lot to say to Obi-Wan, who has seen Tatooine and is still young enough to be mightily uncomfortable with some kid calling him a Master. Anakin takes full advantage of this.

“How old are you?”

“I’m 22 standard. You’re nine, yes?”

Anakin nods innocently. “Only 13 years older than me, and I’m almost ten! And you’re a Jedi Master? Back home you could be my big brother.”

Obi-Wan coughs. “Well… I’m a Knight, anyway, which is not as high a level as Master. I suppose you’re right.”

_”Weird,”_ says Anakin. “Obi-Wan, can I have another one of these muffins?”

Obi-Wan shifts, but he never corrects him. Anakin calls him by his name from that point on, and though other Masters give him and his… friend? Teacher? Anyway, they get some strange looks, but it’s well worth it for Anakin. Hopefully Obi-Wan will understand.

At least once every few days Anakin sends Padme a message about what has been going on, and she offers advice, encouragement, and stories of her own whenever she can. Turns out being Queen is harder than it looks, and Anakin is so happy that she still takes time to talk to a little slave boy. (He’s pretty sure she could be one of those people who keep him tethered, along with Obi-Wan. He’s going to need them now that Mom and Kitster are out of reach.)

Not long after his official acceptance as a Padawan learner, Anakin and Obi-Wan begin to make a Force bond under what Anakin assumes is much closer supervision than would normally be given. Still, they have a lot of one-on-one time to talk and meditate together. He learns that Qui Gon and Obi-Wan had a much more complicated relationship than he first assumed, but that Qui Gon was, for all intents and purposes, Obi-Wan’s father anyway. (He doesn’t share that last bit with Obi-Wan when he figures it out. Obi-Wan doesn’t seem to know.)

Over time, Anakin starts to feel Obi-Wan’s presence in the Force more and more strongly. It’s soothing and warm, and honestly feels a lot like Mom. Actually, Obi-Wan is something like a combination of Mom and Kitster for him, and Anakin can’t help but love him for that reason alone. 

(There are more reasons-- _so many_ reasons that he loves Obi-Wan fiercely after knowing him for mere weeks, but he has also learned his lesson about Jedi and love, so he says nothing. A slave is nothing if not adaptable.)

Anakin learns about mental shields and how to build them for his own protection. He chooses not to hide himself from Obi-Wan because he knows how relationships are supposed to work, even if the Jedi obviously have no idea.

“Anakin,” says Obi-Wan, “You must learn to shield your emotions. I could feel you all the way across the Temple. You will not want others to read you so easily, or they may take advantage.”

Anakin gives him a look. “I know that.” Why does everyone assume he’s as innocent and naive as the kids in the Temple, who couldn’t even spot a swindler in a crowded cantina?

“Then why can I still tell how you’re feeling? Do you need help practicing?”

“You’re the only one here who can feel them,” Anakin shrugs. “You’re my… my teacher, and I trust you.”

Obi-Wan is more than a teacher. He is Anakin’s strom sibling, a friend that would stick with him even through the harshest of sandstorms, just like Kitster and the other slave children who he shared food with and accepted shelter and help from in return. 

Obi-Wan looks at him, mouth slightly parted, for a long time. Anakin thinks he feels shock through their fledgling bond. “Oh.” he swallows. “Why?”

Anakin was ready for this question. “I’m learning so much about the Force here, and how it connects and binds everyone and everything in the galaxy in harmony. Since it naturally gives us the ability to understand everyone we want to, I’m deciding to let it connect me to you. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Hmm,” says Obi-Wan. He seems… confused? Anakin isn’t sure. “Jedi must be able to make impartial decisions that affect the wellbeing of entire planets. We can’t favor one side over the other because we’ve made attachments to the people there, which is why we have the rule.”

That… actually makes some sense. “But planetary militias don’t follow it. Aren’t all of them attached to their families?”

“There are rules about conflicts of interest on many planets,” says Obi-Wan. “If someone is too close to the people in a particular case, they are not allowed to make important decisions about it because they might unfairly help their friends.”

“Why don’t the Jedi do that?”

Obi-Wan sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, though Anakin can feel his mind churning. “It’s complicated. Would you help me make some tea, Anakin?”

“Sure!” Anakin loves using the Force to lift the teapot and pour the water, but Obi-Wan doesn’t usually let him do it. Something about inappropriate use of the Force or something, but Anakin knows that Force isn’t about to be used up. He’s pretty sure the Jedi Masters just made up that rule so kids like him wouldn’t show off and make other people angry, but Anakin learned that particular lesson long ago, and now he wants to lift a kriffing teapot. So he does.

That afternoon it’s like a layer of Obi-Wan’s defenses peels away, but only Anakin seems to notice.

“I want to return your trust,” says Obi-Wan when Anakin asks him about it, “and I’ve a terrible feeling we’ll never understand one another at all if I don’t do this.” He gently peels back another gauzy layer, and for the first time Anakin realizes that Obi-Wan is _nervous._

He’s nervous, but he’s trying his best. Anakin gives him a toothy smile and quickly clasps his hand before dashing off to his room. 

A full year later he finally takes his chance and steals Obi-Wan’s lightsaber in the middle of the night. He peels back the casing and uses a plifered knife to carve out the traditional symbols of blessings, love, and protection in his own unique combination. He’s been practicing for weeks during lessons. Anakin has no japor snippets here to use, but that doesn’t mean he can’t claim more family anyway. Now he knows Obi-Wan will always carry the blessings with him, just like Anakin’s two totems always hang discreetly from his belt.  
.  
.  
.  
When he is fourteen Mom somehow manages to get word to Padme that she has been freed and is marrying a man that she loves. Anakin is ecstatic. It doesn’t lessen his desire to see all slaves freed, but now he has more time to train and become the best Jedi he can be. Mom is free.

That same week Senator Palpatine sets up another meeting. He has taken a liking to Anakin in the past few years for some reason. Anakin figures he’s lonely and doesn’t mind having tea with the old man every once in a while, no matter how much Obi-Wan grumbles about politicians poaching his apprentice. 

(Anakin will always be wary of people in power after his experience with the Hutts, but… well, Padme was still in power and had been since she was his age. They couldn’t all be horrible, right? Besides, she and Palpatine were from the same homeworld, so that had to count for something.)

“So, my boy, what has been going on with you? Have you had any exciting adventures since your success at Taris?” Palpatine’s golden eyes crinkled at him over a worn mug in his office.

Anakin blushes. “I wouldn’t call it a success, exactly…”

“Nonsense,” Palpatine waves a hand. “You got in, met with the King, helped with the rebels, and got out relatively unscathed. You must have done a brilliant job.”

“I mean, Obi-Wan is really--”

“Oh, never mind that, you were there too. Now tell me, how are you?”

Anakin knows that Jedi frown upon attachments, but he also carries with him the teachings of a Grandmother far wiser than the council, so he doesn’t let his connection with Mom bother him. Should he tell Palpatine? Anakin gives a mental shrug. He’s choosing to trust him, after all, so he might as well show it. His illicit comm unit to Padme must remain hidden, but there’s no reason he can’t confide at least a little in the one adult figure who won’t judge him for it. (Or get in trouble for knowing about it, he supposes, in Obi-Wan’s case.)

“Please don’t tell anyone,” he says, “but you know how I was a slave back on Tatooine?” _Back home,_ he thinks, but everyone frowns when he calls it that now. The cold, high Temple is supposed to be his home, for all it doesn’t feel like one.

“Of course, my boy,” says Palpatine. His expression has gone sad and not quite pitying, but Anakin smiles.

“Well… I recently got word that my Mom has finally been freed!” He spits it out quickly, all at once. Palpatine blinks, and for just a second there’s something in his eyes that’s very, very wrong. But Anakin looks again and all he sees is his lonely, elderly friend smiling with delight. Still, he is reminded for a minute that this man has a lot of power and knows all about the slavery rampant in the Outer Rim.

“That’s excellent. I am happy for you, Anakin. I suppose the Jedi have not been helpful?”

“Not exactly,” says Anakin wryly.

Palpatine sips his tea, and they share a look. _Jedi!_  
.  
.  
.

When Anakin is sixteen he and Obi-Wan leave on a mission to assist a local government in dismantling a slave ring somewhere in the Mid Rim. He’s almost relieved to go because it means he can avoid Padme for a while and get his head on straight. His traitorous face has developed a mortifying habit of turning the most brilliant red color at the slightest provocation whenever they manage to actually talk. (He can admit to himself that the love he has grown in his heart for her is far, far out of proportion. He wishes he could tell Obi-Wan about it. Hearing his teasing would be a relief.)

The locals are in over their heads with what is clearly a multi-planet operation, but in the end Anakin and Obi-Wan subdue and arrest the ring leaders without more than the average amount of trouble. The real problem is that Anakin has been treating this like just another mission, and he continues to do so until the victims are right in front of him.

There are many, many ethnicities confined in the cramped basement quarters, and it finally begins to sink in how much of a web existed before they killed the metaphorical spider. He and Obi-Wan are walking through with the local law enforcement, cutting chains and trying to impress upon the disbelieving people that they are now free. Anakin is already furiously releasing emotions into the Force and attempting to remain calm when he catches mutterings in a language he has not heard since joining the Jedi.

He stops dead. Two humans speaking Amatakka are glancing at him as they continue their conversation.

_”Can we trust them? What if this is a trap?”_ says a thin young woman with scraggly hair down to her waist.

The man at her side is older and his body language speaks of aching joints, but his hair is not yet gray with age. _”What choice do we have? Besides, they have no reason to lie. Do you think the Jedi will let us go?”_

The woman scoffs. _”Who knows what Jedi do? They side with Depur sometimes and with us others.”_

Anakin is staring. Some of the slaves around the pair have begun shifting uncomfortably, and even the two he was listening to trail off as he drifts forward and kneels beside them. Kriffing farfiek, are they afraid of him?

He casts his mind back to private conversations with Mom, to whispering with his storm siblings under a Depur’s nose, to the wise words of Grandmother. The words of his first real language are clumsy and unpracticed on his tongue, but he remembers them. He still whispers blessings and curses under his breath and silently rehearses the stories of Ekkreth the Trickster before bed. _I will remember,_ he had promised, and he will.

_”My I cut your chains?”_ he asks. The woman stares. The man gasps and begins to cough, old, creaking breaths that make him suddenly seem much older. Anakin wants to help, but he could never quite forget the basic etiquette of his childhood. He looks to the woman for permission to touch her kin. She hesitates, then nods slowly. Anakin puts a hand to the man’s back and rubs circles, letting out the Force to sooth what he can. The coughs slow to a stop.

“You are from Tatooine,” says the man in Basic after he has caught his breath. His voice sounds as if he’s been gargling sand.

Anakin begins removing restraints. “Yes.”

The woman continues to eye him carefully. “Where did you learn that language?”

“My name is Anakin Ekkreth,” he says, pronouncing it the Amatakka way, _Ahnakeen._ It is a slave name that will say as much about him as anyone from home needs to know. “I learned it from Grandmother.”

“You have not spoken it in a long time.” The man looks him up and down. “You are a Jedi.”

Anakin shrugs and switches back to Amatakka. He wants to gain their trust, and it is not a language that lends itself well to lies. “I am. I have found nimku, and my Mother is mittanku, with the help of her husband.” _I have the power of choice,_ he is saying. _She has endured and toiled to free herself._ He knows these strangers bound against their will already understand far better than the Jedi can.

“So you name yourself Ekkreth,” says the woman. Both of the former-slaves’ eyes are twinkling the same way he knows his must be, something like a shared secret between them.

“The name is from my Mother, but I take his noble work as my own.” He gives them both a showy, ironic bow even as he sits. “For some reason Depur doesn’t like me so much as you.”

The man wheezes a laugh and the woman looks delighted.

“Anakin, where have you gone?” Obi-Wan is calling for him, voice echoing through the ship’s durasteel walls. The man isn’t worried, but he is probably very aware of how fast Akain can find trouble.

“I have to go soon,” he tells the pair. “That’s Richakku* calling. But I swear you will not be delivered to Depur as long as I can do anything about it. Will you tell me your names?”

“I am Naltu Leia,” says the woman. “This is my storm brother, Chakka Darklighter.”

They clasp arms and Anakin stands just as Obi-Wan comes striding back over. “Where have you been, Anakin? We’ve unbound nearly everyone here, now all that’s left is finding a place for them to go.”

“Right.” He nods at Naltu and Chakka and turns to leave.

“Take care of your Richakku, Sky Walker,” Naltu grins.

Anakin smiles back. “You know it.”

Obi-Wan looks back several times at the group of slaves that had been surrounding their conversation. “What was that all about? What were they calling me just now?”

“Oh, nothing,” says Anakin lightly with a smile, so Obi-Wan will think it absolutely is something. “I just happened to remember a little of their language and we had a bit of a chat. It’s nothing bad, don’t worry.” His friend snorts, but doesn’t push further.

_If only you knew,_ Anakin thinks, _Richakku_. A friend and teacher. Usually on Tatooine it had meant an older slave who takes in a young new one to help them survive. He’d used the more familiar version--a mentor and helper, kin in all but blood.


	2. Come So Far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo this just kind of happened... Look! Two Ekkreth stories!
> 
> ... I'm still marking this complete, but there's probably a chance I'll write something else that fits in with this at some point.

Listen, children, and I will tell you a story.

One day as Ekkreth was going along, they came upon a most confusing sight. There were slaves all huddled in one large group with their arms tied around large polls. They were stranded in the dangerous wastes, and Depur’s enforcers were all walking away laughing. Ekkreth knew the ways of the desert, and they knew that a sandstorm was gathering in the distance that would presently scour the slaves down to the bone. So they took the shape of a wealthy trader and met the enforcers on the road.

“Excuse me, Sirs,” they said. “Why have you left all these slaves tied up when a sandstorm will surely blow in?”

Sneering down at this foolish trader, the chief enforcer spoke with them because he thought they must be a person with many beautiful goods. “These slaves have been disrespectful and disobedient, so the Master has ordered that they be left outside where they will surely be punished by the desert storm.”

Ekkreth sniffed as though greatly offended. “A just punishment for their disrespect, I am sure,” they agreed. “But how do you know that the slaves will not free themselves and find shelter?”

The enforcer bowed, sure he would impress the wealthy stranger with his plan. “The polls are thick and strong, and the slaves cannot reach the knots that tie their hands. They would need all the twisting dexterity of the Worrt’s tongue to get free.”

“I see you have overpowered them utterly,” said Ekkreth, and, bidding goodbye to the enforcers, they turned as though about to walk to the spaceport. However, when the enforcers were out of sight they instead moved to the open desert.

Ekkreth knew the storm was coming quickly, so they changed into a bird with sharp sight and strong wings. They flew over the desert, with all its small nooks and crannies, until they spotted Worrt’s head poking out of a crevice. Ekkreth swooped down and caught Worrt in their sharp talons, but they were careful to cause him no harm. Worrt tried to slow Ekkreth’s wings with his flexible, sticky tongue, but Ekkreth was a Sky Walker and could not be so easily stopped.

“I know who you are, Trickster,” said Worrt, when it became clear that Ekkreth would not set him down. “No normal bird can catch me in their talons. Tell me what you want so that I might continue looking for a meal on the ground.”

“I want to know the power of your twisting dexterity,” said Ekkreth.

Worrt laughed a low, creaky laugh. “Why should I give the secret of my power to you when you are already as adaptable as you wish to be?”

Then Ekkreth explained about the slaves tied to poles and how they could not manage to free themselves no matter how much they struggled. 

“I will help you for the sake of the children of Ar-Amu,” said Worrt, “and for the sake of finding my dinner.” So he taught Ekkreth the secret of his dexterity.

Ekkreth flew back to the slaves as the breeze grew stronger. Each of them, from the oldest Grandmother to the youngest child, was bound and bleeding, but still singing the story of Tena the Prophet. When Ekkreth came, the slaves looked up with hope.

“Listen, Children of the Mother, for I have learned the secret to Worrt’s twisting dexterity,” they said. All the people listened as Ekkreth explained how to squirm and wiggle and push themselves free, and when everyone had escaped their bonds Ekkreth led the people to a hidden cave where they lashed together a door and waited out the storm. When Depur came in the morning to look for the remains of the people he’d punished, he found that there was no trace of them at all.

This is the story of how Ekkreth brought freedom to the people and taught them to escape their bonds with skill rather than strength. The chain has not yet been made that cannot be broken. I tell you this story to save your life.

_I will remember._  
.  
.  
.  
Anakin tumbles through the door, relieved that his day is finally over.

“Hello there.”

Or not. He groans as Obi-Wan steps into view with a raised eyebrow already in place. 

“Whatever Windu is saying I did this time--” Anakin starts, but his teacher doesn’t let him finish.

“This is Master Ti, actually. She tells me you’ve been late to her classes consistently for the past two weeks. Care to explain, Padawan?” Obi-Wan folds his arms.

Anakin looks down. “I’m sorry, Obi-Wan. It’s just that I have my advanced mechanics class before that and sometimes I get distracted, you know? Besides, it’s just history. It can’t be that important, right?”

“History is important for a variety of reasons, in fact,” says Obi-Wan, both eyebrows creeping up his forehead. “However, I will leave Master Ti to explain that to you. I think instead we’ll try to teach you some responsibility with a healthy dose of creche duty.”

Anakin’s mouth drops open. He doesn’t know what to do with kids any more than a Bantha would know what to do with a flyswatter in a blizzard. “Creche duty! Obi-Wan, I’m only fourteen, how am I supposed to know what to do with those... little… things?”

“A good lesson, then,” Obi-Wan says jovially. “By spending time in charge of others you will learn the value of respect and discipline. A Creche Master will also be present, of course, just in case anything goes wrong.”

“Noooo,” Anakin moans, flopping onto Obi-Wan’s old couch. The traitor just laughs.

The next day Anakin returns from his first exhausting day of Creche duty to find Obi-Wan honest-to-Force singing as he mends a tear in some of Anakin’s older robes. His voice is strong and steady. Anakin has a few memories of the man singing to him after nightmares in the very early days, but he’s seldom heard Obi-Wan sing apart from that. He stops to listen until Obi-Wan senses his gaze and looks up.

Anakin can feel the embarrassment through their bond, even though none of it shows on Obi-Wan’s face. “Ah, Anakin. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I noticed,” Anakin smirks. “Do you often sing while you sew?”

Now there’s a bit of a flush to Obi-Wan’s face. “Only when there are no cheeky little Padawans around to hear it.”

“Aw, don’t say that!” Anakin pretends offense for a second before he walks over to sit down. “What song was that?”

“It’s an old Mandalorian lullaby,” says Obi-Wan. He hesitates. “Would you like to learn it?”

Anakin doesn’t even have to think about it. “Yes.”

So they spend the next hour trading songs and learning lyrics. Anakin doesn’t apologise for skipping class and Obi-Wan doesn’t let him out of creche duty, but forgiveness echoes through both ends of the bond anyway. Anakin has a feeling they’re actually supposed to talk about this sort of thing, but this is good enough for now.

The next day he arrives in the creche with a much better attitude than the day before. The younglings are all around the developmental stage of a five-standard human, which means they pretty much entertain each other while Anakin and the Creche Master wander around to break up the occasional fight. Still, somehow Anakin winds up with one of the more assertive little girls sitting in his lap demanding entertainment. Master Bondara seems content to let him suffer, so Anakin sighs and offers to teach the girl a song.

For some reason, children keep wanting to join them. Even more unfathomable, they all really, genuinely seem to like Anakin.

He’s never going to get out of here.

Still, Anakin remembers the subtly rebellious songs and stories he learned in his homeland, and something occurs to him. Jedi don’t know how to form good relationships or deal with emotions, not like the wise Grandmothers of Mos Epsa. But Anakin does know. He can teach these young ones that power without attachments is prone to flying off and causing destruction, and he can encourage them to feel emotions without letting them take over or turn them to the dark! There’s no way any of the Masters will approve, but Anakin remembers all about passing information right under the noses of the Masters.

He’ll just have to improvise.

.  
.  
.  
 _  
It so happened one day, as Ekkreth was going along, that they passed a great group of slaves all sewing and stitching thin, sturdy lengths of cloth. They were doing it so fast and had been there for so long that even the slaves’ calloused fingers were raw and bleeding, and they stained the cloth as they worked. It was not cut for clothing or any work Ekkreth knew, so they took the form of a powerful outlander and strode over to the guards._

_“Excuse me, good people,” said Ekkreth, “but what is the purpose of those long pieces of cloth? I do not know of any task a thing such as that can accomplish.”_

_The guards smirked among themselves, but did not mock Ekkreth because they believed Ekkreth was the holder of some great wealth. The chief guard stepped forward with great dignity. “Great Lady, these slaves are rebellious and troublesome. They speak only lies and treasonous plans to run into the desert, so the Master has ordered them to sew gags that will stop their ridiculous words.”_

_Ekkreth stared out at the slaves again, as though incredibly confused. “But Sir, how can you be sure they will not simply remove these gags from each other?”_

_Proud of his Master’s cleverness, the chief guard said to Ekkreth, “Lady, there is a metal strip in each gag and when they are finished they will all be welded shut forever. These slaves would need all the enduring acidic power of the sarlacc to wear them down.”_

_And the guard told Ekkreth all about how the gags would be made and welded, and how the slaves would never again sing another song or put together another plot. Ekkreth agreed that such a plan was very important, and they praised and smiled at the guards as though very impressed indeed. The guards bragged and bared their teeth in return, and then Ekkreth went on their way as though there was much business to attend to._

_As soon as Depur’s guards were out of sight, Ekkreth turned their face toward the wild desert and began to walk. They journeyed for three scorching days and three freezing nights until they crested a hill, and there at the bottom was the gaping mouth of Sarlacc._

_“Sarlacc!” called Ekkreth, for even the Trickster could be swallowed by that terrible mouth. “Sarlacc we must speak!” But Sarlacc was sleeping. She snored a great loud snore that shook the desert hills, and Ekkreth’s voice did not even cause her to stir. And so it was there that Ekkreth performed one of the best, most dangerous tricks they ever dared._

_Ekkreth transformed into a flying, buzzing insect and flew right into Sarlacc’s mouth. They followed her throat down, down, down for a long time while the suns moved in the sky overhead until they came to the place where Sarlacc kept her enduring acid which could burn through everything. They turned back to normal and reached into their bag. Ekkreth took a small clay jar and tried to fill it, but the jar melted away. Next they tried a smooth glass cup, but that was not strong enough either. Finally, Ekkreth drew out a dish made from a scale of Leia the Mighty One. It burned and hissed, but the scale did not give way._

_Ekkreth transformed into a small bird with the scale clutched carefully so it would not spill. Then they flew up out of Sarlacc’s mouth and away to the house of Depur._

_When they arrived in the night they found all the slaves with gags welded around their faces and no way to speak or sing anymore. Instead they had begun to carve symbols on scraps of japor wood so that their secret thoughts might be known, but when they saw Ekkreth their mouths tried to smile, for Ekkreth always brought hope._

_“Come and listen, Children of the Mother,” said Ekkreth, “for I have stolen a great and powerful secret: the enduring acid of Sarlacc.” Then all the people gathered around and Ekkreth dissolved their chains and their gags. When the slaves found their voices and hands free they ran out of their prison and into the desert, and Depur woke in the morning to find that all his slaves had gone._

_And this is why the children of Ar-Amu still carve their most important promises into japor snippets. Even if our voices are taken and our people are sold, we can always remember the words in our hearts and feel them etched forever into the wood._

_I tell you this story to save your life._

_I will remember._  
.  
.  
.  
At eighteen standard, Anakin is still a Padawan with little say where he goes or who he helps, but he can still badger Obi-Wan with enough persistence to get a mission somewhere when he really needs to. After their run-in with the slavery ring in the Mid Rim, Anakin has realized that he doesn’t need to be a full-fledged Jedi Knight in order to help where he can. His efforts need not be limited to the creche.

He already had this knowledge somewhere in his brain, stored with the hidden memories of runaways sitting at his table and Mom’s steady hands weilding a stolen knife to cut out transmitters from arms, legs, wherever they can find them. The slave ring has only helped him remember that one does not need special training in order to whisper stories or hold hands tightly in the dark.

As often as possible, Anakin gets Obi-Wan to accept missions that run concurrent to slaver outposts, and sometimes even the safe planetary shelters that he can remember. He hides as much as possible from Obi-Wan and blames his sleepless nights on nightmares, reckless scouting sessions, or whatever it takes as long as he doesn’t suspect the truth. Anakin loves him, but Obi-Wan was never a slave. Outsiders are hard to trust with knowledge about the freedom trail. 

Besides, it’s hard enough for Anakin himself to find the underground, and he’s positive it exists. Everywhere there is a gathering of slaves, there must be some kind of way to get out. After months of lurking around hidden corners and feeling like the sneakiest spy alive as he listens to locations and names that mean almost nothing to him, Anakin finally manages to make contact with a few semi-permanent hidden stops along the main hyperspace lanes.

They don’t trust quickly. The first time he drops in on a hidden evacuation wearing nondescript clothing and no lightsaber at his side, Anakin isn’t sure what to expect. The dirty, abandoned warehouse is so stereotypical he could almost laugh, except the thought of performing an emergency chip removal in these conditions kind of makes him want to puke instead.

“What do you want?” grumbles a large being with arms thicker than Anakin’s head. He’s doing his best to shield a table behind his bulk, despite the soft whimpers Anakin can hear and the surgical blade in the being’s hand. This is a Singer, then. By the wall stands a spindly magenta woman holding guns in three of her four hands, all of them pointed at vital places on his person. Hand number four points a knife.

“I want to help. I’ve been free for a while, and I have pretty high clearance now,” he says, hands in the air. “I travel all over the galaxy on a regular basis, and I’m tinkering with my own ship. It has a whole bunch of little pockets of space, if you catch my drift.”

The woman scoffs. He can’t even blame her for it. “We’d be worse than fools to trust a random offworlder. Where are you from?”

“I’m Amavikka, from Tatooine. My Mom is a Singer.” He nods respectfully toward the big one, who grunts and turns back to his patient. By some signal the woman lowers two of the guns and prods him into a corner.

In the background the patient sucks in a loud breath and the Singer’s gruff words give way to a soothing low voice that croons a tune about death and freedom. It’s different from the ones Anakin heard as a child, but he knows hidden meanings when he hears them.

He can’t focus too much on the song, though, because the woman presses her remaining gun so hard into his side that she might be trying to impale him on it.

“How did you find us?”

“I’ve been here on a mission with my teacher for three weeks, in and around the Center Point, keeping my ears open. The Republic might ignore the Grand President’s policy on servants, but was pretty obvious from the start. I figured there must be a freedom trail somewhere.” He considers shrugging, but the gun is still pressing hard enough into his side that he thinks better of it. That’s going to bruise later.

At that moment there’s a scream that the patient can’t bite back. “Get over here, Lhynauch,” the Singer says. “Leave him for now.”

Anakin is not stupid enough to assume this is the woman’s real name--those get someone caught faster than a speeder drving down a sand dune. He wonders what the moniker means and if, like on his home, the slaves have a language and culture all their own from which to draw inspiration.

The woman gives Anakin one last glare before she pulls back and hurries to the Singer’s side. Anakin pulls out a holotablet while they work and begins to type. He’s researched this before, no matter how much Obi-Wan seems to think he’s incapable of preparing ahead of time.

The patient leaves with no detonator under their skin and all the documentation of a legitimate Republic citizen. Anakin gives the others the ident codes to a cheap, long-distance comm he bought the day before, just in case they ever need his help, and gets the kriff out of there before the woman decides to shoot him.

(“What do we call you?” the man asks after thoroughly double-checking Anakin’s work.

He hesitates. “I am Umakkar Nittu,” he names himself. The storm in the night, where a slave can disappear to freedom, one way or another.)

He can’t help in person often, but digital records are even easier to build and piece together than the droids he was making at nine years old. Ever so slowly, Umakkar Nittu’s reputation spreads. A ghost who kills slaves and raises real people in their places.

There’s one time, and one time only, when Obi-Wan catches Anakin with a girl in his room. She worked at the palace, supposedly, and Anakin is planning on providing her transport halfway across the city to another contact. Obi-Wan covers his eyes and complains the whole time he backs out the door, and Anakin receives a somewhat scathing lecture in the morning. He can’t bring himself to regret it.

“What have I taught you about attachments?” Obi-Wan groans halfheartedly.

Anakin smiles with too many teeth. “Since I only saw her the one time, it can hardly count as an attachment, Obi-Wan. Unless you meant--”

“NO! I do not need to know anything about my Padawan’s sex life. That is a cruel and unusual punishment that I refuse to be subjected to.”

Anakin laughs. Even as he rolls his eyes, Obi-Wan can’t help but do the same.

Somehow over the next months and years the whole Temple begins to assume that Padawan Skywaler is a little free with the ladies (and even the men, some whisper with delighted scandal). He makes sure no one sees when the beings in question screw up their faces in pain while he cuts out deactivated transmitters, and no one ever notices that they enter as property and exit as citizens of the Republic. 

“I want in,” Padme tells him with all of the determination and fire of a woman who rallied her entire planet to fight when she was still a child playing at government. Anakin knows that the Queen of Naboo was practically considered a high-profile intern until she managed to strike an alliance, breed hope in the face of adversity, and free her home, all without the help of the Republic.

“You want in… what?” he says carefully.

He can almost hear her frown twitching. “I’ve gotten into contact with your Mom, and she’s arranging for some of Tatooine’s native products to be shipped to Naboo.”

“Oh.” He processes that for a minute. Padme obviously doesn’t understand the huge amount of honor and trust she’s been given. Anakin wonders how often Mom spoke to her before she made the decision to accept help, and he feels a pang of jealousy that he had no line of communication to her. He won’t tell Padme the ident code to the secure comm he hides for Umakkar Nattu, for her safety and everyone else’s; even if he could, Mom doesn’t have a device that would reach Coruscant. There’s no good way to get her one without arousing suspicion from the inspectors or the Hutts, and Anakin won’t risk her safety no matter how much he wants to talk to her.

“She wanted me to tell you that she loves you, and she thinks you make a wonderful Skywalker,” Padme adds, like an apology. Anakin smiles. Mom thinks he could be Ekkreth, blending in and tricking Depur to set the slaves free right under his nose. She doesn’t even know he’s already going to make his own legend, Umakkar Nittu, the storm that whisks slaves away in the night with no trace left behind them.

“Fine,” he says.

Padme sends him messages and updates from Mom more frequently now. He can tell the two are kindred spirits, even when he only has Padme’s interpretation of their interactions to work with. His datapad pings more and more often with requests for “missing paperwork.” Obi-Wan catches a glimpse of it one day and doesn’t even question that his wayward Padawan is flouting the authority of the Jedi Temple yet again.

He is, of course, just not in the way Obi-Wan assumes. 

Anakin almost wants to tell him, but he has a feeling Obi-Wan has already noticed much more than he’d like to admit. He doesn’t even have to ask for preference to be given to areas around the main slave rings anymore, and Obi-Wan has pointedly stopped commenting on the amount of women (and men) Anakin pretends to lure into his rooms in the night.

He’s never given much of a kriff about his reputation anyway, and being thought an adrenaline junkie and man-whore is a much more convincing cover than he could have come up with on his own. Plus, most of the slaves he’s freeing get a huge kick out of being flirted with, even if he’s never going to take advantage of them that way.

Anakin is 20 when he sees Padme again for the first time since they were both children. She never seemed like a child, but looking back, he wonders how so much responsibility could have been placed on her young shoulders. The first thing Anakin realizes when he walks into the room is that his younger self was not just idolizing the kind offworlder, and that Padme is, in fact, one of the most beautiful people he’s ever seen.

The next thing he realizes, about ten seconds later, is that pretend-flirting with people he’s not interested in is a _much easier_ game than actually speaking to a person he has something of an... attachment to. _Keep it together, Skywalker, this is just your childhood pen pal who has grown into an amazingly… no, look her in the eyes, you scum._ He wants to punch himself in the face and try again, but Padme is obviously nervous too and assures him later that his total awkwardness is forgiven.

Then there’s a whole conspiracy of assassination attempts, which the Trade Federation simply must be behind despite Anakin’s infuriating lack of proof. It’s a good thing Obi-Wan is investigating because he’s not sure there’s any other Jedi he would trust to piece everything together.

Honestly, Anakin is ready to be pretty upset he can’t also investigate, until Padme grabs his arm in a moment of solitude and leans close to whisper in his ear: “This seems like an excellent time to go pick up a delivery that’s waiting for me on Tatooine. I believe it’s waiting with someone you might like to visit.”

It’s the best possible thing she could have said. (Yes, the best, shut up hormones.)

“As soon as possible, please,” he murmurs back. “I’ve been having dreams of Mom getting injured or worse out there. I’ve never had visions before, but this feels true.”

She raises an eyebrow, pulling back. “Feels true?”

He winces. “The Force… it resonates a certain way when someone is outright lying, if you’re sensitive enough to feel it. This dream doesn’t feel like a lie, not even a little.”

“Then we’ll go tomorrow,” she says, easy as that. Anakin is surprised, but then he remembers that Mom is close enough to Padme to offer her some small portion of secrets from the freedom trail, and everything makes sense again.

Before they arrive on Anakin’s home planet, he makes sure to change his fitted black uniform for looser, white garments that will be unremarkable on Tatooine. White reflects the sun, and he still remembers how to wrap the cloth in a way that will keep as much sand as possible on the outside. Black is the color of night and freedom, yes, but the only ones who wear it are Depur and his enforcers, people who do not have to toil in the heat or walk through the shifting sands with the common folk. It would send the opposite message he would like, no matter how convenient of a color it is in other places.

(He discovered the black clothes as a teenager, sure that its stark contrast to the white and cream robes of the initiates would infuriate somebody. He thought the Jedi preferred white because it reflected their spotless spirits and reputations or something, but to his surprise, he barely received any comments at all. His new wardrobe looked good and hid stains well, though, and Anakin grew to like it. It matched his new name.)

Anakin’s soft-soled boots hit the sand, so different from the flimsy things that occasionally protected his feet in childhood. Sharp dust whips into his eyes and he squints at the sudden brightness and heat. It’s been so long that the atmosphere and landscape seem suffocatingly empty and unbearable, more than he ever remembers them being. At the same time, Anakin shuffles into the crowded street with Padme at his side and remembers this flow. He knows how to move in this crowd, to blend in and pass through, just another weary traveller who will soon be sunburnt over his pale spacer skin.

Neither of them really know where Shmi lives now, so Anakin heads for Watto’s shop. Whatever else his owner had been, he had never been cruel. Anakin will never be afraid of him again.

“Little Ani,” Watto calls him.

“Yes,” says Anakin. Everywhere else in the galaxy he is Padawan Skywalker (or sometimes Umakkar Nittu), but here he can only be Ani.

Watto apathetically points them in the right direction, but when they arrive at the modest farmhouse they find that neither Shmi nor the escapees ever arrived.

Cleigg Lars, the stepfather Anakin has never met, greets them with weathered bags under his eyes and a posture so stooped over his shoulders nearly point to the floor. “She’s gone,” he says, voice gravelly like the sand in all their lungs. Anakin’s heart burns in his chest, a dying star. “She went off to visit the Whitesuns, but we think the Tuskens got them on the way back. Me and my son Owen were going to gather a search party tonight.”

Having a step-brother along with a stepfather is weird, but Anakin honestly has more pressing concerns. Mainly, the quiet rage and panic that are building within him like a bonfire. He closes his eyes and breathes deep, releasing a little to the Force so that he can speak without clenching his teeth or falling to his knees.

“Do we know where their camp is? Did anyone need a Singer?”

Cleigg shakes his head. “This farm is out of range for all of them. If they needed a Singer Shmi would do it at the Whitesun house, so there might be several recovering. Tuskens won’t be kind for that, but they like human prey to live a while, if you know what I mean. They’re out in the Wastes, and the sooner we catch up the better.”

Anakin sucks in a breath. Worry is covering all his other emotions now, worry and urgency and the need to _find her right now._ “I’ll go with the two of you tonight. I’m nearly a fully-trained Jedi, and we won’t need too many others to sneak away. If we take our speeder and yours, will that be enough to get everyone out?”

Cleigg’s shoulders go up just the smallest bit. “Yes. As soon as Owen’s finished with the vaporators we’ll go.” He turns to Padme. “Pardon me, Lady, but would you like to stay--”

“I’m going,” she says. He wonders what she’s been making of all this.

“There’s no stopping her,” he tells Cleigg with a smile, and the man actually guffaws. He’s got a great laugh, and Anakin can suddenly see how Mom fell in love with this man.

Cleigg looks at Padme as if he’s suddenly found a rare gem. “I like you, Lady. You’re foreign, but you’ve got some Kryat in you I’d wager.”

Padme gifts him with a sharp smile. “You’d be right.”

They meet with Owen some time later, and by that time Anakin is practically bouncing with anticipation. He will no doubt have time to feel unbearably awkward after they return, but right now he’s got a one-track mind. Save Mom and her people, and get them out. The four of them ride two to a speeder and dive off.

The Tuskens have made no effort to hide. Smoke rises from their camp and smudges the bright blue sky like a dark cloud. _A raincloud,_ Anakin thinks. _We’ll bring the rain, alright._

The sun is low in the sky when they pull up half a click from the camp. They wait there for full nightfall, knowing the darkness will cover them as their feet whisper over the sand. Padme, no matter how much she wants to help, has more trouble moving quietly in this terrain than the rest of them. Anakin and Cleigg tell her to stay with the speeders and be ready for a quick getaway.

She’s not happy, but when even Owen weighs in she finally, begrudgingly agrees.

Not long after the sunset, Anakin, Cleigg, and Owen ghost into position. They give the signal when they’re ready, joining together in a song Anakin still remembers from childhood:

_Death waits in the desert_

_Step, step down_

_The fire and the storm_

_Step, step down_

_Run to me, my darling_

_Step, step down_

_A mother’s arms are warm_

_Step, step down_

This song would sound so morbid to an offworlder, Anakin realizes. In Amatakka they use the same word for death and freedom. _Dukkra ba dukkra._ It’s never safe to mention the possibility of being free. He wonders what Padme thinks of it.

The single verse repeats over and over, and soon more voices than theirs are singing softly into the night. Anakin listens, pauses, and moves forward, creeping up and over a dune. The voices are coming from a small shelter on the outskirts, guarded by two Tuskens.

He wants to ignite his lightsaber and destroy them for taking his Mom, but he needs to get them out discreetly or the whole camp will be upon him in an instant. _Heart, not power_ he reminds himself, _just like you’ve been telling the younglings._ He can almost feel Mom’s phantom touch on his shoulder.

Owen and Cleigg come from two other directions, and they quietly surround the tent. The song has died down now, but someone is still humming it quietly. This must be the only tent with prisoners, or at least the only one where they’re conscious.

Anakin gestures at them to stay put, then closes his eyes to concentrate. _I’m nothing,_ he thinks. _I am sand and wind and moonlight._ When he opens his eyes again he takes a breath and steps forward, right into the Tuskens’ line of sight. They don’t acknowledge him. Despite the tension, Anakin’s mouth quirks up the smallest bit. Cloaking himself in the Force is something he discovered on this very planet before he even knew what Jedi were, and it has never failed him yet. 

He strides forward, and reaches out with the Force. His Mom’s signature is inside, older and half-remembered from Anakin’s memories and the bond they still share, but he would know her anywhere. Without warning he slams an elbow into the back of one Tusken’s head hard enough to knock it out completely. The other turns in confusion and alarm, only for its face to meet Anakin’s foot. Within moments both beings have slumped down onto the sand. Cleigg and Owen creep forward, something like awe and fear on their faces in equal measure, but Anakin can only dart forward to find his Mom and the ones she’s saved.

He passes through the tent flap and his breath catches. There she is, dirty and a little bruised, but well enough to comfort the teenager at her side and the stirring baby in his arms.

Shmi Skywalker looks up. “Ani?”

“It’s me, Mom,” he whispers. His throat is suddenly parched and dry. “We came for you.”

He feels almost disconnected from himself as she pats the young man on the shoulder and stands, wrapping him in her arms. He’s taller than she is now, and her warm, calloused hands pull him close and just brush the back of his neck.

“My son,” she murmurs in Amatakka, “my son.” 

Just like that all the emotions slam back into Anakin’s body. The joy of seeing her again, the anger that this has happened, and the sheer relief that she and her companions are safe all swirl together in his chest like a boiling pot of water.

Owen coughs, and they pull back. Anakin’s face is wet, but he doesn’t bother to wipe his eyes. “Hate to break up your reunion, but why don’t we all get out of here?” his step-brother says.

“Right,” Shmi nods. Anakin almost protests, but she gives him a look that will never stop working against him, and he follows with a sigh. They take a roundabout way out of the camp and over several hills to make sure they’re not being followed, but no one hears the slightest sound from the camp. The Force starts pounding a warning through Anakin’s head as they circle closer again, but he can’t quite articulate why.

“Something’s not right here,” he says. The others pause to look at him. “The Tuskens haven’t noticed we knocked the guards out, or we would have heard them. Actually, where are the other Tuskens? I haven’t seen any other patrols or anything since we left.” Just as the words leave his mouth the answer hits him full in the face. “Padme.” 

Before anyone can stop him he sprints off in a direct line to the speeders, overturning tents and ducking past fire pits as he goes. The camp is nearly empty, only the shocked cries of women and children accompany his mad scramble.

A horde of Tuskens are gathered around the two speeders, held at bay by the blaster shots flying around their heads. “Where have you been?” Padme shouts.

“Just grabbing a few things, you know how it is,” he calls back. His words are meant to be nonchalant, but he’s sure Padme can hear the anger in them. These things took Mom, they took a kid and an innocent baby, and he will not give them the satisfaction of touching a hair on Padme’s head. She is his oldest friend now, and it’s his job to protect her besides. His lightsaber ignites in his hand.

Killing has never been easy for Anakin. It’s happened sometimes, on the occasional mission gone sour, but it makes him sick every time.

Now he cuts down Tuskens without thought for where he hits them, anger and desperation clawing at his heart. Padme is staring when he reaches her, but it doesn’t look like she admires his fighting skills. He doesn’t care. He drives the Tuskens away back to their camp, yelling at them like a wild thing until a baby’s cry cuts over his own.

Anakin stops and turns. Mom is there, the screaming child in her arms and the speeders ready to go. “Get over here!” 

He nods, jumps up behind her, and Owen punches it. Six people and a baby is a tight fit for two speeders, but they have no better options. It’s only when Mom covers his hand with her own dirt-stained, bony one that he realizes he’s shaking all over.

“We’re safe, Ani,” she croons. “We all made it, you came back, it’s alright.”

“Mom,” he says. There’s nothing else he can think to say. Even though he can’t see her face, he feels her smile.

“That’s me. You better watch that power of yours, Ani. How’s your heart?”

“It just keeps growing. The Jedi don’t like emotions, but I never let rules stop me before,” he laughs. It’s weak, but he feels better for the effort.

“Good.” She relaxes against him and he curls around her just a little, savoring whatever time he has with her. She still smells the same, like sweat and sand and wisdom. He wonders if she has changed as much as he has in the time he’s been away, but it doesn’t really matter in the end. They love each other. They can work out the rest.

Besides, he can’t wait to tell her about Umakkar Nittu, not to mention all the other things he’s been up to under the noses of the Jedi Masters. He wants to see pride on her face again.

With a genuine grin, he thinks about everything he can finally say.


	3. All of My Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, a wild update! Uh... yup, so this happened. I hope the Anakin/Padme going on here is significantly less creepy than whatever was going on in the movies.

Anakin and Padme stay at the Lars house for a few days, getting better acquainted with the occupants there. Cliegg and Owen are actually fairly pleasant company. Anakin would have been much more skeptical of their motives, but he knows Mom married as a choice and not a necessity. That makes all the difference in his view. 

The second night, after Shmi and the two escapees have recovered somewhat, they all gather in the main room to share stories. Anakin sits at Mom’s feet, as is the custom. Niku, the boy, comes to sit beside him. 

Anakin shoots him a questioning look. He shrugs. “My family is gone, other than my sister there.” A nod at the baby currently playing with Owen across from them. Owen is a young man of few words, unlike his father, but Anakin likes the way one little baby girl can make his whole face open up like a flower in bloom. Without looking away, Niku says, “Shmi and Beru… they have helped me when I could not get us out myself, so I honor them.”

Anakin clenches his hand in surprise and the sand shifts and pulls at it just like the words catch and move his heart. He bumps Niku’s shoulder with his own and gives him a sad little smile. “I understand. Mom got me out too, you know. I was so determined to free her first.”

Niku nods, and they sit in silence for a while as conversation flows around them. Anakin closes his eyes. This community and groundedness is something he has been missing for years. The Jedi do not have small, round huts in which one can whittle away the hours of a sandstorm with conversation and laughter that drowns out the howling winds. Nor do they have the spicy foods that make a mouth feel alive, or the push of the beating suns, or the smell that rises from the sand. Somehow, he is more connected to Niku and his own people through all these things than he is to any Jedi or offworlder, even Padme.

On the other hand, he isn’t a perfect fit anymore. The Jedi’s training and his adventures across the galaxy have changed him, opened his eyes to problems and blessings that he never even noticed before. Anakin is a fledgling red bird, pushed out of his nest and unable to return, but not yet able to fly. There is nowhere in the galaxy he feels perfectly at home. To stay here on Tatooine for the rest of his life would be to diminish what he has learned and grown into these last ten years, but giving it up entirely would be like ripping out a vital piece of himself. It’s hard to tell whether he is grateful or angry about that.

“How did the two of you meet?” Padme asks Cleigg and Shmi. Cliegg laughs freely and seeks danger unflinchingly, Anakin has found, and he is the one to answer first.

“I train a lot of new farm hands for each season.” His bright eyes find Anakin and Niku with a wink. “For some reason, I can’t ever keep them more than that. They always run off seeking adventure somewhere, but at least they can fall back on those skills just in case. One of them mentioned her when they got here, the loveliest Singer they’d ever met. I met her at work in Watto’s shop not long after, and the rest is history.” 

Padme laughs out loud, and Anakin’s face hasn’t stretched in a grin so wide since he was a kid. He can’t help but like Cleigg when he realizes what the man isn’t saying. He glances at his friend, but Padme’s poker face is good enough that he’s not sure how many of their secrets she knows at this point.

Shmi folds her hands demurely, but there’s a sly smile on her face. “He slipped me extra tips whenever he came by, and along with my own savings I was able to buy my freedom. Cleigg offered me a place on his farm until I found my feet and I never did get around to leaving.”

There is no way for slaves to earn money. Shmi stole or gambled for whatever she got, but Anakin doesn’t feel the need to point that out to Padme. Apparently no one else does either.

Anakin loves Mom dearly and always will, but after four days he and Padme both sense that they’re soon going to wear out their welcome in the cramped desert hut. They bow out as graciously as they can, despite the little family’s protests, to finally fly out to their official destination on Naboo. Anakin slips Mom a discreet comm with the highest security codes he can write, which will be able to reach his own all the way on Coruscant. Umakkar’s code is already programmed in. He thinks Padme might have noticed something, but she’s tactful enough to keep her mouth shut and wise enough that she probably knows it’s dangerous information to hold.

Mom hugs him tight before he gets on the speeder. “That’s a good girl we’ve found, Ani.”

“Yeah. Yeah she is.”

She pats his cheek and her weather-worn face splits into a melancholy smile, like the sun coming out after a sandstorm. “I already brought her in, so you better hold on close,” she winks. “Just not too close. She’s a regular Leia if I ever saw one. I don’t think she’ll ever stay away from a fight.”

He feels his face warm unpleasantly and hopes it’s not turning noticeably red. “Mom, that’s… there’s rules, and…”

“No,” she tells him cheerfully. “I had you first, so what I say goes. Didn’t you tell me there aren’t any Grandmothers on that Jedi council? They’d do well to listen to one.”

“You’re right about that,” he says with a grimace. “I’ll comm you when I can, okay? I can always use more advice about the younglings, at the very least.”

“They can’t be more of a handful than you were,” she says. “Now go. The lady’s waiting.”

He does go, but he stays at the window until Mom is out of sight. 

Naboo is a beautiful planet, and they really do intend to stay there once they’ve arrived. Padme is having a ball showing Anakin all the native glories and foods of a water planet the same way he showed her what he could of life on Tatooine.

“It’s just a fruit. What’s scary about a fruit, _Ani?”_ she teases, sitting on the soft green grass that covers every bit of ground he can see. Anakin makes a face. He wishes she’d never heard that name back home, because now it’s only a matter of time before she gangs up with Obi-Wan to torment him. He flops onto his back with a huff and looks up at the sky through the rounded leaves on the trees. More fist-sized bulging fruits hang from them, speckled and green and disgusting.

“I don’t like fruit! I just don’t, okay? It’s too sweet and…” he waves his hands around, hoping to better convey his point, “weird.”

“Not even one little bite?” She waves her own lumpy prize in his face. There are bites taken out, revealing the mealy red insides and the odd purple seeds. It drips sticky juice onto his face. 

“Gross! Leave me alone!”

“Not a chance. You left me to fend for myself with all your crazy desert spices. This is my revenge.” She kicks up her bare feet against a nearby tree trunk and leans back on one hand, taking another bite. Anakin doesn’t mean to stare, but it’s not often Padme allows herself to be so free and it’s almost breathtaking. Her top is loosely fitted and the neckline falls only to her collarbones. The sleeves are bunched at her elbows and her pants are a rough material good for climbing or running in the garden. Her relaxed slouch in the grass is effortless, and with the background of the watery sky and the far-off sun lighting up reddish streaks in her hair, Anakin can’t take his eyes off her.

His attention snaps back to the present when she lobs what’s left of the fruit right at his face. “Hey!” He stops it with the Force on instinct, spluttering, and shoots her a glare, but she’s already laughing and climbing into the nearest tree for another one. Her hair is pulled out of the way in a simple nerf tail, and he wishes he was close enough to reach over and tug it, just to annoy her.

“Come on, try one? For me?” She sends him an exaggerated pout as she sits on the branch.

He shuts his eyes tightly and turns his back. “Nope. You may be some high and mighty senator but you sure can’t make me eat one of those disgusting things.”

He hears her feet thump to the ground, cushioned by the moss and grass. “Challenge accepted, Padawan Skywalker.”

She chases him back and forth, into trees and behind bushes. He’s more fit and trained than she is, but she has the home field advantage, and eventually manages to corner him between a short cliff and a splashing, artful waterfall. He could jump either easily with the Force, but there’s been an unspoken rule so far that he won’t use it in a way she can’t get around.

“Surrender!” she crows, brandishing the fruit like a trophy. Or preparing to launch it like a grenade.

He tries to edge slowly to the side. “I’d really rather--”

His words are cut off when she grabs him by the arm and shoves it at his mouth, effectively cementing her win and silencing him with one move. He can’t help but be impressed, and reluctantly takes a single bite before knocking the rest of it out of her hand and letting it fall on the ground with a thunk. She stands there laughing while he spits out chunks that do, indeed, have a weird texture and a too-sweet taste, and he isn’t even the least bit mad about it. Juice dribbles down his chin in a way that certainly looks unattractive, but he hardly even cares. It’s completely Padme’s fault.

They retreat inside not long after that when the bugs come out.

As Padme sits at her desk and sorts through piles of bills, legislation, petitions, and whatever other things she manages to steer like a fine spacecraft, Anakin comfortably paces nearby while forging paperwork for a family of Twi'leks. The best part of staying with her on Naboo, he thinks, is that he’s free to work on Umakkar Nittu jobs without concealing or lying about it. Granted, Padme isn’t the biggest fan of forgery, and she doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing for the sake of plausible deniability, but they’ve decided to let it rest until she manages to make some sweeping changes in the Senate.

So all in all, things are going pretty well for Anakin until he receives a staticky, rushed call from Obi-Wan one day that clearly communicates a dire need for backup. Padme comes in as he replays the message, just in time to hear him implore Anakin not to come.

“He’s in trouble on Geonosis,” says Anakin in the same long-suffering sort of voice with which he might say _Yes, I looked at the map_ or _Of course I’m packing socks._

Padme fingers the blaster that never leaves her side as she watches the droids begin to overpower Obi-Wan. “Grab what you need. I bet we can be out of here in half an hour.”

She strides out of the ship with a purpose. Anakin stares in awe for a few seconds too long before Artoo pokes him back into reality and he stumbles after her to haphazardly gather his things. Kriff, he loves this woman.

The rescue doesn’t go as planned, but what else is new? 

Geonosis is a dusty brown world full of caves and rocks and not much else. Even the sky seems dry and hot in comparison with Naboo’s deep blue pools. Anakin and Padme cautiously leave the ship near Obi-Wan’s last coordinates and promptly walk right into an unexpected enemy droid factory.

They’re captured far quicker than he would like, mostly because he loses his lightsaber early on and doesn’t have another weapon on him. Padme holds out for a while longer with some impressively accurate blaster shots, but even she gets overwhelmed by the numbers eventually. 

Grey-skinned, buglike Geonosians pull Anakin aside to search him and chain his hands, prodding him with their glowing green blasters into an old transport that will presumably carry him to his execution. Actually, calling it a transport would be a compliment. It’s more like a rusted out mining cart that’s likely been in use longer than Ekkreth’s been tricking Depur. If he wasn’t weaponless and surrounded by buzzing Geonosian wings on all sides he could’ve escaped in seconds.

The second contingent returns to his sight. Padme’s white clothing stands out starkly against their dirty brown surroundings, and he bites back a smile as she talks the whole way toward him.

“--is a cruel and unusual method of punishment that should not be in practice for any creature, much less sentient beings. I demand you release me and my guard at once or you will face the consequences of a severe miscarriage of justice against both the senator of Naboo and a Padawan of the Jedi Order--oof!”

A Geonosian unceremoniously shoves her into the pathetic cart beside him and secures both their cuffs to small rings embedded in the floor. It flies past them with an irritated buzzing noise and leaves them chained and surrounded by guards. Something unpleasant and angry twists in Anakin’s stomach at the very idea of both him and Padme bound in such a way. A poisonous voice whispers in his ear, _take revenge, tear them apart for chaining you again! Make them cower in fear at your feet for a change!_ Padme leans against him in defeat, and he shakes the voice away.

_Patience,_ he thinks, remembering his mother, Kitster, Grandmother, and all the other slaves he’s helped free since then. _The chain has not yet been made that cannot be broken._ He breathes more easily and believes. Then he turns to Padme and manages a smile.

“I don’t think your threats have quite the same effect if these guys don’t speak Basic.”

“I had to try something,” she grumbles, “and they stole my blaster.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Well that’s a huge mistake. You’re already thinking of some devious way to make them pay, aren’t you?”

“I’m working on it,” she says, and leans her head on his shoulder. Anakin’s heart rate does a traitorous little jump and he glances around as though the guards will share his incredulity. They ignore him. 

He clears his throat. “In the meantime, would you consider trying to not die with me?” 

She smiles at that, just a little. “It would be my pleasure, Padawan Skywalker.”

“The pleasure’s all mine. It’s every young Jedi boy’s dream to fight for his life alongside a beautiful, deadly senator, you know.”

She pulls back, and he tries very hard not to mourn the loss. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” It’s pathetic, but it’s also the only thing he can think to say when she’s suddenly looking at him like that. Her fists remain clenched, but her expression softens.

“We’re going to win,” she says, “but just in case… I’d rather have no regrets.” And then she’s leaning forward, ever so slowly, and Anakin finds himself leaning too, without even thinking about it. He hasn’t really done this before; it wasn’t exactly encouraged in the Temple, and there was never anyone that he really felt the need to break the rules for.

He is completely willing to break the rules for Padme.

They meet in the middle and her lips brush his with just a little press of warmth. Heat washes through his whole body in a flood. He tilts his head and does it again. It’s _wonderful._ Why the kark have the Jedi banned this? Anakin feels more content and at peace with his own feelings and with the world than he has in ages.

The cart they’re standing in jerks and begins to move. Anakin is used to such sensations from a healthy variety of Jedi adventures, so he simply plants his feet and allows himself to sway with the motion by instinct. Padme, on the other hand, is awkwardly thrown against his chest before she can find her balance. If his hands were free he would hold her there, but that is not currently an option. Instead she rights herself and they both look around in trepidation as the Geonosians leave them to die in a gladiator pit surrounded by a roaring crowd.

Obi-Wan is already chained up and waiting. Anakin groans and prepares himself for absolute chaos. 

The situation does not disappoint.

As soon as the show begins it dissolves completely into unstructured mayhem. Before Anakin knows what’s going on, Padme is shooting droids left and right while he watches her back and Obi-Wan tangles with the beasts that were meant to kill them. Just as things are starting to look really dire, Jedi start pouring out of the woodwork to rescue them.

“Good timing!” Anakin calls.

“Watch it,” says Padme, blasting a droid out of his face. “We’re not done yet.”

He falls in beside her, deflecting any blaster bolts that come close. “Just trying to be a little optimistic, Senator.”

He gets the strong feeling that she’d be rolling her eyes if it were safe to take them off the battle for that long. He does catch a flash of her feral smile while she continues to shoot as many droids as possible. “Whatever you say, Jedi.”

Count Dooku is a crafty opponent, and Anakin would let himself be impressed if he wasn’t using that intelligence and skill against the Jedi. He fears they’re done for until Yoda shows up with a veritable army of men in white armor to take out the droids and Geonosians. He doesn’t even have time to question where they came from before he, Obi-Wan, and Padme are jumping into a transport to follow wherever Dooku’s run off to in all the madness.

The droids don’t let up. Anakin stumbles his way forward slowly toward his teacher, trying to avoid knocking over any of the men in white in the process.

“Obi-Wan, do we know what we’re getting into?”

“I--” Obi-Wan doesn’t get to finish. One of the droid ships scores a direct hit against their port side, jarring the whole transport violently. Everyone grabs for handholds and stumbles against the turbulence, but Anakin’s eyes lock on Padme and somehow he knows what’s about to happen. She loses her balance, takes a few small steps, and this time he isn’t standing there to catch her against himself. One of the soldiers reaches after her and falls as well for his trouble.

“P--Senator!” It’s out of his mouth before he can stop it. “Stop the ship, we have to get them out of there!”

“Belay that, continue pursuit,” says Obi-Wan. He doesn’t yell, but his voice carries clearly anyway somehow. “Anakin…

“Down! Put us down!”

“Keep us moving!” Obi-Wan grabbed for Anakin’s wrist with a withering look. Anakin is pretty sure he sees the pilot subtly flip him off as they keep flying, and he doesn’t know whether to yell about it or laugh hysterically at this point.

He finds himself arguing with Obi-Wan instead, which is pretty much his default setting. “It’s my job to protect her! She could be hurt or killed down there, we need to--”

“Anakin!” Obi-Wan grabs his arm and catches his eyes. “This could be our chance to stop Dooku and end this war before it begins. Make no mistake, it will be war after this all comes out.” He gestures around at the soldiers, the droids, the fighting still going on.

“But she--”

“What would she do if she were in your position?”

That makes Anakin pause. Padme does seem to care about him, yes, but her duty is her life. She serves her people with a determination that reminds him of the way he works on the freedom trail. Relentless and unyielding. In that moment Anakin realizes that he would leave her behind like this if it meant he might save a planet from slavery. How can he make a different call when it’s her cause on the line instead of his? He must trust her to be safe without him.

It still hurts when the words tear out of his throat. “She would do her duty.”

Obi-Wan nods. Anakin catches just a glimmer of sympathy in his expression before it hardens again. “Good. Now you have to do yours.”

He tries to focus entirely on the mission, on Dooku, on the fight. It’s a lot harder when he doesn’t know if Padme is alive, and he wonders if this is the reason that relationships are forbidden by the council. Distraction gets one killed as quick as an injury does in battle. 

Dooku slashes against his arm and it feels oddly light for a second before the agony hits him. Burning hot coals are being pressed against his skin and they will not leave. Sweat breaks out on his brow and he moans. Dooku’s Force signature is sending out waves of sticky darkness, Obi-Wan lies injured beside him, and Anakin’s arm is far shorter than it’s supposed to be.

_Was there another slave detonator in me?_ he thinks hysterically. _Did the healers miss one?_

Someone comes closer to him and he flinches away before realizing that Dooku’s presence is absent once more. He catches a glimpse of Yoda’s concerned green face before he passes out entirely.  
.  
.  
.

He leaves the medbay prodding at his new prosthetic, determinedly thinking of how he’s going to modify it to carry hidden messages and compartments, rather than dwelling on the horrible battle. Padme is already talking both of them out of trouble with the council like the expert politician that she is, and she even nabs him to escort her home now that the battle is over. Anakin has a feeling they wouldn’t have normally gotten away with it, but reports are still flowing in about who’s dead and how and what to do about it. Everyone is in shock, and it’s not difficult to slip away. They owe him a bit of medical leave for this injury anyway.

“Are you alright?” he asks her as soon as the other Jedi are gone. He hasn’t been able to speak to her alone since she fell out of the transport.

“Am I--” she shakes her head in disbelief. “Ani, are you okay? I’m not the one who lost a limb, here.”

He waves it off. “This? Don’t worry about it, I’ll adjust.” He doesn’t mention the mental shields he’s barely maintaining by the skin of his teeth. Keeping his focus outward is the only reason he’s avoiding a mental breakdown right now.

She raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, it hurts a little,” he admits. “I keep getting these weird phantom pains from my real arm, but at the same time this one almost feels like my real arm. I can control it as easily, anyway, with a bit of therapy, but I think the pressure capabilities could be better. I’ll be adjusting it later to see if I can improve it.”

Nothing to worry about here, just a mechanics nut figuring out how to implement new designs into his prosthetic. The prosthetic that he now has because his _Richakku’s_ Grandmaster cut off Anakin’s arm and caused the deaths of--

Nope. He’s okay. It’s going to be okay.

Padme smiles. “Well, I’m glad to hear you’re already thinking about how to fiddle with the machinery, at least. Maybe you actually are feeling better.” 

Sure he is. “I’m not that predictable, am I?”

She sighs dramatically. “Do you know how many times you’ve ranted to me about technology over the years?”

“Probably about the same amount that you’ve lectured me about all the hidden meanings you can fit into Naboo fashion,” he says.

“You did think it was cool that the type of weapon hidden in my hairdo could determine the mood of a meeting.”

“The fact that it’s a given that some kind of weapon will be hidden in your hair still disturbs me.”

She shrugs. “Needs must. My ship is this way.”

He follows her guiding hand to wherever they’ve moved the ship after the battle ended. He honestly might not have the mental capacity to even care about where they’re going anymore. The ramp opens for them and she pushes him inside and down onto a seat before he can protest again that he’s fine.

“I’ll set the coordinates. You rest there for a minute.” She strides off into the cockpit.

Anakin keeps telling himself he can handle it. He thinks he can do this. Then he sits in the soft, padded seats of Padme’s rich-person starship and takes a moment to close his eyes and assess himself. He sinks into his mind and finally lets go of all the extra barriers he’s had up since they arrived here.

The pain hits like a blaster bolt to the stomach, taking him by surprise. As soon as he touches the Force he feels it screaming out in hurt and grief and _wrongwrongwrong!_ Anakin breathes through it as steadily as he can, curling his body into a ball. There’s nothing else to be done. He has never had many friends among the Jedi, but it’s not like he ever wanted anything like this to happen, and it suddenly hits him how many of them died today. Not Obi-Wan, but other people that he knew, that he nodded at in the hall and sometimes laughed with in the commissary. A rushing sound fills his ears and a young voice is making quiet little keening sounds in the background. His chest feels constricted and his face is screwed up all wrong. 

He doesn’t notice Padme coming in until a soft hand brushes his shoulder. The touch brings him back to reality and he realizes that it’s his voice making those terrible pained little noises and his own arms restricting his lungs as he hugs himself tightly. She runs careful fingers across his forehead and he relaxes the tension there, already feeling the relief it brings. He uncurls a little, embarrassed. 

“Get some rest,” she tells him gently. “I’ll take us back to Naboo.”

“Can I…” He swallows. He has no idea where they stand at the moment, but he thinks he can ask her this. Studying the thick maroon carpet beneath his grimy boots, he says, “I could use a hug.”

“Oh, _Ani.”_ She slides into the seat on his left and wraps her arms around him. He returns the embrace. It’s comforting to feel her arms against his back and her cheek on his shoulder, grounding him and holding him together all at once. For a long moment he just shudders and breathes and reminds himself that they’re both alive, Obi-Wan is alive, and somehow it will be okay. The world balances itself again. His face is wet.

“Thanks,” he says finally, pulling back a little and wiping at his eyes. 

Padme lets him go gently and stands. “I’m going to fly us out of here. You stay put and take a nap or something, okay?”

“Okay.” He doesn’t know if she understands what it means when he doesn’t even want to pilot the ship. He has a sinking feeling that she does.

By the time they’re clear of the atmosphere and safely on autopilot, Anakin has already fallen asleep.

They have three days of respite before Anakin has to return to the temple and Padme can arrange a guard to protect her in the Senate. They make it about one day before Padme springs an absolutely ridiculous plan on him.

“Let’s get married.”

They’re standing on a neat white balcony that overlooks a picturesque little garden with lush green undergrowth and trees blooming pink. Birds cheerfully serenade them in the background and a miraculous little brook runs over and through the flowers and bushes like a delighted child. It’s the kind of fanciful, rich setup that Anakin wouldn’t have believed even existed as a boy on Tatooine. He jerks his gaze up from where he was comfortably tracing the meandering dirt paths that curve around like snakes between decorative statues and rocks.

“Excuse me?”

The bright blue sky arches triumphantly overhead and complements Padme’s lacy dress and sparking eyes. She’s wearing an expression more mischievous and daring than he’s ever seen on her face before. 

“We should get married.”

“Padme, I… what? We haven’t even gone on a date yet!” He throws his hands off the white railing in confusion. “We kissed one time because we thought we were going to die. Even Tatooine courtships usually take longer than that!”

She sighs and turns back to the garden, face half lit by the afternoon sun. It’s a beautiful effect, except for the way that the shadows easily highlight the stress lines in her forehead and the bags under her eyes. “I know,” she says. “I know that it’d be crazy and stupid and shortsighted. Jedi aren’t even allowed to marry, and my family would be offended and upset that I didn’t tell them.”

And of course the idea is impulsive and probably unwise in the long run, but… well, Anakin has a bit of a reputation for that kind of thing, doesn’t he? “There are a lot of things Jedi aren’t technically supposed to do,” he allows.

“Yes, I believe one of those things is the horrible flirting we’ve both been participating in.”

“Horrible? I’ll have you know that I planned from the beginning to woo you with my awkward and stumbling charm!”

“Sure, Ani,” she says. It sounds tired. Her small hands curl tighter around the railing and she turns her face away. There’s a long beat of silence while he looks at her.

“Why do you want to get married, Padme?”

She slumps. 

“You’re a great guy, Anakin. I know we haven’t exactly seen each other a lot, but you’ve been one of my closest friends for years. And now you’re here and I love having you around.”

“Hey,” he says. She looks up. “You’re pretty much my best friend too, you know. Me and the other Jedi kids never really understood each other and… well my Mom doesn’t approve of just any offworlder. But if that was the only thing on your mind you wouldn’t be moving this quickly. What are the other reasons?”

Padme looks down again and slowly reaches for his hand. He tangles their fingers together and waits. 

“My family wants me to marry,” she says, then stops. He raises an eyebrow and remains silent. Padme wouldn’t be bullied by giant gladiator beasts or Federation gunships, so there’s no way her own family would be able to force her hand this way. He doesn’t doubt that she’s telling the truth, he just doesn’t believe for a second that that’s all of it.

“Oh fine,” she says when she realizes that he isn’t going to buy it. “I’m making a lot of enemies, and a lot of those enemies have very dangerous connections. Since you’re a Jedi we wouldn’t be able to file anything officially, but if we don’t hide as well as we could, the rumor will spread anyway. It would… it would help me out if anyone who messes with me believes they will also be dealing with a severely annoyed Jedi…”

“It would keep you safe.” She’s asking for help, Anakin realizes. That’s why it was so hard for her to spit it out. It goes against Padme’s nature to admit to any kind of weakness, just like him. Her security team must be more worried than he’d thought if she’s giving marriage to a Jedi serious consideration.

She takes a deep breath. “Yes. I don’t want you to think that I’m using you, or that I don’t genuinely care about you, though. I know how the Jedi feel about relationships, so you can say no and I’ll hold nothing against you at all for it. Especially because there is the potential for my enemies to also target you. But I believe we could work very well together, Anakin Skywalker, and even though we’re not about to die I still don’t want to live with regret. Plus, I think Captain Panaka is going to start locking me up for my own safety if the situation continues the way it has been, and there is no way I will sit out of the Senate at a time like this.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you want to go all the way to marriage,” he notes. “We could just be dating.”

She shifts and shrugs. “This way if anything happens to me, it’s not weird to leave you control of a whole lot of assets that may or may not be suspiciously connected to the freedom trail.”

It takes him a second to process that before he laughs in delight. “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you? You really are an angel.”

“So what do you say?” She hides her fear well, but he can feel a trickle of nerves in the Force anyway.

He thinks about it. He thinks about how disappointed Obi-Wan will be when he hears about it, how the Council won’t be able to prove anything but might hate him even more than they already do. Then he looks at Padme. He remembers her smile, and her passionate fights for justice, and the new paths of the freedom trail she has helped smuggle slaves across. The choice is less difficult than it should be.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s do it.”

All the worry drops from her face just like that, and it resolves itself into a huge, glowing smile. “We can take it slow,” she tells him. “I think we’ll last a long time.” She turns to go inside, hesitates, and comes back to lean up and kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Her face is pink when she goes back inside, but her determination never wavers and that smile stays bright and happy. Anakin just stands there, slowly bringing a hand up to cover the place she kissed him. To his surprise, he’s grinning too.

On day two of their tiny rest period they do all the planning. 

“Alright, I’ve got a person, Uriah Bibble, who can officiate us and won’t ask any questions,” says Padme, setting down her comm on the table. “He’s been known to help young couples elope before, so this situation won’t seem overly odd.”

Anakin glances up from the couch. “Awesome. Are we having some kind of ceremony? On Tatooine we have a tradition of sharing water and carving japor wood, but I know you still have the one I made you when I was a kid.”

“I’d like a ceremony,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to wear a wedding dress, and there’s one still left here from my cousin’s marriage a few years ago. We can share water and have this guy say man and wife before he signs the paperwork. The droids can witness, so it all looks legal. Just enough to hold up in court if anyone should question my Will, anyway.”

“As if you’d go down without a fight anyway,” Anakin grins and forces back any thoughts of Padme dying like all those Jedi and soldiers on Geonosis. It’s not something he’s willing to contemplate. “That works for me.” He focuses back on the sort of legitimate forms he’s filling out. “We’ll have to give him fake names, even if the paperwork is real. Do you think I could be an Edmund? I heard the name somewhere and I’ve always wanted to use it for something.”

“Look at me for a minute.” Padme steps closer to him and studies his face intently from several different angles while Anakin tries not to laugh. “I think you could pull it off. What about your last name?”

“Kenobi, obviously.”

She rolls her eyes fondly. “Obviously.”

“Great.” He scribbles down a made up signature for Edmund Kenobi and holds the papers out for her. They’ll steal Bibble’s signature from these fakes and add it to the real forms after he’s gone. “Your turn!”

“Hmm…” she gazes at it thoughtfully. “I really liked the name of your mom’s friend, Beru. What did it mean?”

Anakin shrugs. “It’s not in a language anyone can claim to speak anymore,” he says easily, “But I think it’s a type of desert flower. Specifically, the only thing stubborn enough to grow just about anywhere on Tatooine and look karking good doing it. So it’s a good fit.”

“Beru... Dolphe. That’s a common last name, so he won’t question it.” She signs the papers with a flourish. “There we go.” Anakin feels a little leap in his chest of some feeling he can’t quite pin down. It hadn’t seemed real before, but for all intents and purposes he is now almost legally married to the woman of his dreams. He kisses her on the cheek and smiles at the contentment thrumming between them in the Force.

They get married on the third day.

For once everything goes as planned. Bibble signs the forms, and the droids are counted as witnesses with minimal aplomb.

They’ve decided to hold the ceremony on the same balcony Padme had proposed on the day before, though now the white railings are tangled in a mess of sharply-scented, colorful flowers that they’d cut from the garden. The view remains breathtaking, but Anakin isn’t worried much about how the garden looks at the moment. “What a splendid occasion,” says C-3PO, sounding surprised that they managed to make the place look somewhat nice at all. R2 beeps a sarcastic reply, and C-3PO gives him a light smack on the top of his dome. “It’s a wedding, R2, I’m allowed to be sentimental!”

Bibble stands by the railing as Anakin approaches with a clear crystal glass half full of water. He’s an older, portly man wearing a musty black suit and a truly impressive grey mustache. He also seems to be a hopeless romantic. Anakin sets the glass down on a little end table beside Bibble and pauses in the silence. A decorative bowl he and Padme had dug out of the creaky kitchen cabinets gleams in front of him beside the glass, waiting.

Anakin almost swallows his tongue when Padme steps out of the sliding door carrying a matching crystal glass. She’s wearing delicate lace down her arms and over her skirt, which flares and trails dramatically behind her into a short flowing train. Her hair is flowing down her back, simple and curly brown, and adorned with irregular white pearls. For a second he wonders how many weapons she could hide on her person in an outfit like that.

Anakin can’t take his eyes from her as she approaches, but in his periphery he sees that Bibble’s eyes are watering and he’s hopping up and down on his toes a bit in excitement. Definitely a hopeless romantic, he notes absently. Padme takes Anakin’s hands, which is all she needs to do to have his complete attention again. Hers are warm and small and callused from regular practice with a blaster.

Bibble talks for a bit about love and destiny and conquering problems together until he gets to the part that Anakin actually cares about.

“Do you, Edmund Kenobi, take Beru Dolphe to be your wife?

“I do,” he says. He lets go of her hands and picks up his crystal glass, pouring the water into the bowl. “I take you, Beru, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” He reaches into his pocket for the necklace that she’s strung the old japor snippet on and carefully clasps it around her neck. It feels oddly surreal, but he’s also about the happiest he can ever remember being.

Bibble grins so widely that he dimples right behind his mustache and bounces once again. “And do you, Beru Dolphe, take Edmund Kenobi to be your husband?”

“I do,” she says, and pours her own glass of water into the bowl to mix with his. “I take you, _Edmund,”_ she catches his eye and he almost laughs, “to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, from this day on and for as long as we live.” 

She picks up the bowl and offers it to him. Anakin takes a sip of the water before handing it back for her to drink from as well. He’s so glad they decided to share water. The Tatooine custom makes the marriage feel real for him in a way that nothing else today has.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife!” says Bibble excitedly after Padme sets down the bowl. He continues to bounce on his toes with joy, which is the type of trait that would usually annoy Anakin, but it will take a lot more than that to bother him today. “Go ahead and kiss each other, then!”

Padme laughs at that, and Anakin can’t hold it back anymore once she’s laughing, so instead of a dramatic passionate kiss, the photo R2 takes of their wedding is one of both of them leaning forward and laughing their heads off while Bibble just smiles widely in the middle. It’s the best photo Anakin’s ever been in.

They do end up sharing a peck on the lips, if only for Bibble’s sake (he squeaks in delight). Then they shoo him off after the ceremony so they can return the balcony to normal before Anakin has to leave. The Jedi are expecting him for a debrief on Coruscant early the next morning, so he’ll have to ship out after dinner.

“I wish I could stay longer,” he says after the flowers have finally migrated from the balcony to various vases and pitchers around the house. He managed to tuck one brilliant red bloom behind Padme’s ear, and she got him back by sneakily twining a blue one and a green one around his lightsaber hilt. 

She just smiles. “We already knew it was going to be like this, so we may as well get used to it. Next time we see each other one of us is going to have to plan our first date.”

“Force.” Anakin shakes his head. “We are doing this so backwards.”

“I don’t mind,” Padme says.

He catches her gaze and smiles so wide his face might hurt in the morning. “I don’t either.”

She sends him back to the Jedi with a kiss on the lips and a spring in his step. Something in him is settled and calmer than it’s been in years, and the Force seems to sing with joy.


	4. Secrets Deep Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Anakin does not forget his first home, makes important contributions to the freedom trail while Obi-Wan pretends not to notice, and gets married... sort of. Also there's a war now. Karking wonderful.

Returning to the Temple only to be rapidly Knighted and sent off to war is not Anakin’s idea of a good welcome back.

He’s happy for the promotion, of course, and he knows Obi-Wan wouldn’t have let it happen unless he was ready, but speeding off in a shuttle to meet his new legion of enslaved soldiers is not exactly something he is excited to do. It certainly isn’t what he pictured when he thought about his first solo mission as a real Knight.

The ramp lowers, and he swallows back bile at the sight of nearly a thousand men at his command. They all stand in formation on the unmarked durasteel floor of the brand new warship whose twisting corridors and railed walkways will be their home for however long the war lasts. They’re wearing identical white armor, and he knows that underneath the sea of expressionless helmets they also have identical faces. In the Force each of their presences is unique, but he wonders, briefly, if they’ve ever been treated as anything other than interchangeable before.

He walks off the transport, doing his best to keep his expression from showing his distaste. Hundreds of thousands of men, bought and paid for by the Jedi on behalf of the Republic. He’d hardly believed it when Obi-Wan briefed him, with a defeated expression and the leftover dregs of a kind of numb shock that obviously showed he hadn’t known either. They’d both thought the Republic was better than this.

Padme had already been spitting mad when he called her. The Republic was at war, the Senate had found an army, and there was nothing she could do about it. She’d begun working on a bill for sentient clone rights by the time they hung up. “This affront to everything the Republic stands for cannot be allowed to stand!” she had told him so sharply that the words still ring in his ears as he looks across this sea of manufactured people a day later.

One clone steps forward to meet him with a crisp salute, and Anakin forces his mind to focus. With shining white armor covering him from head to toe like a bleached turtle in its shell, the soldier shows no outward sign of emotion. Anakin feels the Force thrum around him with just a hint of nervous energy. “General Skywalker, Sir,” the soldier says. “This is the 501st legion. I am Captain CT-7567, at your service.”

Anakin almost throws up. Almost rages. Almost cries. He clings to control by his fingernails, and manages a nod.

“Pleased to meet you, Captain. Do you have a name I can call you by?” His words come out quiet and calm. He has never been allowed to scream about the injustice of slavery the way he can about other things.

The Captain hesitates, and Anakin gets the feeling that his character is being reassessed by the being under the helmet. “Rex,” he finally says. “I call myself Rex, Sir.”

Anakin’s shoulders loosen just the smallest bit and he nods again. “Captain Rex.” They have spirit. He’s certain that none of the _Depur_ on Kamino wanted them to have names or permitted their use. If the clones have been able to keep something for themselves and hide it, safe against their hearts, it will do a world of good for them later. “I would appreciate a meeting with you to discuss logistics. I’m told I have an office somewhere on this ship, so can you meet me there in an hour? The rest of the men can go about their business.”

“Sir, yes Sir!” Rex salutes again and motions someone else forward. “You, take the General to his quarters.”

The new trooper salutes Rex, salutes Anakin, and pauses uncertainly for a minute, back so straight there might have been a durasteel pole inserted into his armor. “Um, this way, General, Sir.” Unlike the Captain, this man is nearly hyperventilating with anxiety. Anakin shoulders his bag and follows him, their steps echoing together in the bare gray halls. It’s like walking on the inside of a convoluted cooking pot, with the war just waiting to roast them alive.

“Would you mind pointing out any areas I should know if we pass them?” Anakin says.

The man stiffens and salutes again, as if he’s been given a new important mission. “Yes, Sir!” 

Anakin seethes on the inside. Are all the men so afraid of him? What, exactly, do they think he’s going to do if they get something wrong, and what does that say about the way they’ve been treated so far? They walk past rooms that are introduced as “the mess” and “trooper barracks” before stopping outside a plain doorway. 

“Your quarters, Sir.”

Anakin smiles, trying to put him a little more at ease. “Thank you. May I know your name, trooper?”

“CT-4533. Arch. Sir.”

It isn’t a typical name, exactly, but they wouldn't have had much to work with if all the _Depur_ gave them were numbers. “Thank you for your help, Arch. I look forward to working with you and the rest of the men.” Just like that Arch’s fingers unclench and he bleeds relief into the Force. “I’m going to set up in here. Feel free to head back to the others.” Anakin gives Arch a polite little bow, slips through the door, and begins finding homes for his few possessions. 

He wants to shake Arch and shout to the whole legion that they don’t have to fear him. He will fight for them and protect them with all his might because that is his job and someone has put slaves under his care. But they would never believe him, he knows. They would only fear him more.

Instead he puts his things away with more energy than is strictly necessary and ponders what he will say to the Captain. He also explores what there is to see of his quarters. The door opens to a front room with a desk, two chairs, and an empty shelf. Behind that another door leads to a tiny bedroom and an even smaller ‘fresher, though he expects that it’s a huge luxury to have one to himself at all on this ship.

Rex, still fully armored, knocks twice on the door exactly one hour after Anakin arrived. He wonders whether the Captain is just that good at estimating, or if someone is keeping detailed records whenever something noteworthy happens.

Anakin punches a button on the wall and the door slides open. “Come in,” he says. “Please sit down.” Originally there was one chair at the desk and another in front of it, but he’s moved them for this conversation. It would do no good to have this talk at an official desk, pretending Anakin actually knows what he’s doing and has orders to pass down.

He sits first, internally cataloguing his Captain’s body language. Rex sits stiffly, as if he’s unsure how to hold himself. Anakin gets the distinct feeling that he’s never sat in the presence of a superior before. “You wanted to discuss logistics, Sir?”

“I did,” Anakin says, “but I would like to explain something else first. Would you mind taking off your helmet?”

Rex pulls it off easily and glances down, obviously unsure. He eventually decides to settle it half in his lap with an arm wrapped around it, like a child holding on to his favorite toy. It’s Anakin’s first look at one of his new troops without full body armor. Rex has a hard, rectangular face and skin quite a few shades darker than Anakin’s own. His natural blond hair is buzzed short, though Anakin is almost sure the few photos he’s seen of Jango Fett showed a dark-haired man. Perhaps some strange cloning process left the troops with lightened hair?

He takes a breath and notes the way Rex’s face twitches just slightly before Anakin speaks, a tell that would normally be covered easily by his helmet. “I want you to know that you and your men are in no danger from me. I don’t know what the Kaminoans did to you, but I have a few guesses and none of them are pleasant.”

Rex blinks. Anakin thinks that’s as close as he gets to a flinch. He keeps talking. “All clone troopers on this ship are fully allowed to individualize themselves as they wish. Get haircuts or tattoos, decorate your armor, whatever you want. And for the love of the Force please use names if you have them.”

“Sir…” Rex stops. Opens his mouth and closes it again.

“I don’t care what rules they had for you, Captain,” Anakin says quietly. “As long as no one gets hurt, please make yourselves at home here.”

He leans forward in his seat, then. “There’s something else you should know. I’m the youngest Jedi in charge of a unit in the whole Order, and I have a reputation of being a little impulsive. No one will be surprised if my casualty rates are higher than average, especially in my first few engagements. If there are men that want or need to get out of here… well, no one has to show me a body for me to sign a death report.”

He watches how that falls, sees the way Rex’s eyes widen and his body loses its quivering tension. There’s still suspicion on his face, but the Force also resonates with a tiny thread of unbelievable hope. “Sir… why?”

“The second half of my life has been devoted to the Jedi Order and its teachings,” Anakin says. “But the first half was spent in slavery on Tatooine. I didn’t escape that only to become a slave master now.”

Rex processes that. His thinking face is remarkably blank. “I… I’ll pass that information on, Sir,” he says finally. 

Anakin smiles. “Thank you.”

“Was that all you wanted to discuss, General?”

“Oh, wait!” Anakin sits up and tries to look at least a tiny bit professional. “There’s actually…” He trails off, shakes his head, and starts over. “I’ll be blunt, Captain. Jedi are meant to be peacekeepers, and we aren’t taught how to wage war. I have no idea how to run this operation, and I’d bet that you are honestly more qualified to be in charge, even though that’s not how the Senate apparently sees it.”

Rex stops. “General?”

Anakin sighs. “I can come up with creative plans, good positions, and I can kill about four droids with one lightsaber slash. I don’t know anything about battle formations or how to set up an attack or a siege or a good defensive line. Can I count on you to coordinate those things, and maybe show me how it all works while you’re at it?”

“You don’t… oh.” Rex feels stunned in the Force, but he gathers himself enough to salute with impressive speed. He seems determined, but also pleased, Anakin thinks. “You can count on me.”

“Thank you.” 

They stand. Anakin holds out a hand to Rex, who clasps his forearm in what Anakin thinks is a Mandalorian style. As his Captain strides out of the room, hopefully to tell the others that Anakin’s not about to murder them for sneezing or something, he feels like this was a major step in the right direction.

…

“Hello, my boy.”

“Hello, Chancellor.”

Anakin sits in the plush chair across from Palpatine’s desk and nearly marvels at how comfortable it is. After a long month on the ship, he’s gotten used to spare quarters and minimal comforts, and coming back to visit the Chancellor of the Republic in his opulent office is almost giving him whiplash. It doesn’t help that the rich maroon carpet on the floor and stark white accents and furniture remind him uncomfortably of wounded clones on the battlefield.

Despite his unfortunate taste in office colors, though, he really is fond of the man, and would endure more than this gross feeling in the pit of his stomach to visit him. Palpatine has always been a shoulder to lean on when he hadn’t felt comfortable going to Obi-Wan.

“So,” says Palpatine, leaning forward and clasping his wrinkled hands together. After weeks of battling through dust, dirt, and slime, Anakin can’t help but notice his bizarrely clean fingernails. “I hear you have seen some major victories already! Quite impressive, even for a talented young Knight such as yourself.”

Anakin shrugs. He is proud of their success so far, but he can’t take credit for it, really. Rex has been proofing and editing all the plans in red ink, the same way Obi-Wan used to do with his homework assignments. “We’ve done alright. I wish there were more opportunities to come home, though.” He hadn’t really spoken with Obi-Wan since his rushed Knighting ceremony, and conversations with Padme have been severely limited.

“An unfortunate consequence of duty,” says Palpatine. “Perhaps one day soon you could sit on the Jedi Council and take more opportunities to come back and visit.”

Anakin scoffs, though inwardly he preens at the idea that anyone could think so highly of his skills. “The rank of Master is required for a seat on the Council, Chancellor,” he reminds with a smile.

Palpatine shrugs elegantly. “You seem to have mastered Jedi techniques to me. Look at everything you’ve accomplished! You deserve some reward.”

“The other Jedi have also accomplished some impressive feats,” he says. 

“Ah, but none of them have pounded the droids quite so thoroughly. Has no one told you, my dear boy? Your stats are some of the highest in the order.”

“Oh. Wow.” No one had told him that, and for a minute Anakin is a little miffed at being the last to know. Then he realizes that isn’t fair. He and his men have undoubtedly succeeded with flair, but he knows their missions so far have been much simpler than some of the others, with better intel and straightforward goals. However the holonews is ranking Jedi, it clearly isn’t taking that into account.

Speaking of his battle stats, a strange feeling is stirring in Anakin’s gut. He knows the Chancellor has seen the casualty reports from his campaigns. How can he be so pleased when all Anakin’s engagements have resulted in a devastating loss of life? There’s no way he knows that men are smuggling their brothers out alive one by one. “I’ve lost a lot of men, though,” he says as neutrally as he can.

Palpatine actually waves him off with a smile. “It hasn’t been a problem with the budget, my boy. Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the good of the war effort! Everyone can see the comparison numbers: there were hundreds more droids killed than clones in every battle you’ve led.”

“I… suppose.” Anakin is dumbfounded. Is Palpatine’s heart so small that he can’t even see the humanity behind the clones? He needs to think on this. Palpatine has some of the greatest power in the whole galaxy right now. For the first time, he wonders if the man’s heart is big enough to match it.

The rest of their meeting is uneventful, and Anakin is distracted by his newfound concerns about the old man in front of him. Palpatine brings up some thoughts on the current state of the war, throws out a few ideas he could implement better with additional emergency powers, and tells him about the most recent opera he attended. Anakin agrees absently, not truly paying much attention at all.

He wonders what Padme has been making of all this, but she’s so tied up in conferences and calls that they can’t squeeze in any time to meet at all. He wishes they could at least see each other that night, maybe even finally go on their first date, but he’s already being called back to his ship and speeding off planet before nightfall.

At least Padme lets one of her most gossipy friends catch a glimpse of their holocall, just so they can both spend a long minute laughing. Sometimes a little laugh makes the whole world brighter, he’s found, especially when the rest of the galaxy is so mired in darkness.

…

Anakin breathes a sigh of relief when the other ship hails them. “Thank the Force.”

“Sir?” says Rex. They’re standing alone in a conference room, putting facts together on a holotable, but he never drops the formal title. Over three months into the war and Anakin knows that Rex is almost as much of a kriffing insane battle tank as he is, unafraid to bend the rules in order to save lives or get things done, so he’s not sure why this is the line Rex won’t cross. At this point only time will tell the winner between Rex’s stubborn propriety and Anakin’s badgering.

“The Council said they were sending someone to check on us at the same time as the supply refill, since I’m--what do you guys say? I’m a shiny Jedi, and our casualty reports are too high for the milk run missions they’re giving us.” He hopes they’ve brought more caf and some good armor paint for the men. Everything else they can make last.

Rex stiffens. “You mentioned that two cycles ago. They’re here? But you sound happy,” he says tightly. 

Anakin nods. “It looks like they sent my old Jedi teacher. He’s awesome, been turning a blind eye to my shenanigans forever. I think we’ll have to tell him what’s been going on, but maybe he can help.”

“It might also depend on his men,” Rex points out. “Who does he command?”

Anakin flicks through a few projections, searching. He should know this, but the war going on under his nose has been a bit distracting, and he hasn’t lost the feeling of information overload since everything began. “The 212th attack battalion. Know them?”

Rex actually smiles, which is not something Anakin often gets to see, and his whole presence seems to light up a little. “Cody’s battalion. They put my ori’vod with yours.”

Anakin doesn’t even have to ask for a better character reference than that. “I guess we better go meet them, then. You and Cody are invited to the meeting, feel free to hug it out or whatever once we’re sort of in private.”

“Sure, Sir.” Rex says drily, but Anakin can see that he’s excited. The smile continues to twitch at the corners of his mouth, and there’s a bit of a bounce in his step as he marches properly at Anakin’s shoulder. 

They arrive at the landing bay just as the boarding ramp on Obi-Wan’s shuttle has finished lowering. His teacher looks exhausted and stressed, and Anakin feels a pang for adding to his worry right now. Obi-Wan clearly doesn’t need more on his plate. Still, he marches determinedly over with a small squad and a Commander, presumably Cody, who holds his helmet at his side. None of them look happy.

“Anakin,” says Obi-Wan icily, “I believe we need to have a conversation.” Oh Force, if those reports were real he would be in huge trouble here. His teacher is a level beyond disappointed and angry that he’s never seen before. He thinks Rex might be laughing at his sudden fear. 

“Dismissed,” Obi-Wan tells his troops. They scatter into a sweep designed to look unorganized, which will most likely carry them through the ship to find evidence of Anakin’s horrible leadership skills. They won’t find anything, he hopes. The 501st seems to approve of him so far. Cody remains at Obi-Wan’s back, and Anakin has never seen such cold disapproval on any clone’s face. A sizable scar around Cody’s eye, emphasized by his strict regulation haircut, only serves to make his glare even more threatening. He never wants to see it directed at him ever again.

They walk back to the conference room in silence. Cody is looking at Rex as though he wants to wrap him in a blanket and scan him for injuries, interspersed with glares in Anakin’s direction. As soon as the door is closed Obi-Wan rounds on him, outwardly serene but leaking some terrifying feelings into the Force. 

Before he can say anything, Anakin makes careful eye contact with Cody and nudges Rex forward. “Captain Rex,” he says. Cody actually jerks in surprise, and Anakin’s a little miffed that Obi-Wan’s men thought he was terrible enough to either not use or not know Rex’s name. “Please, for the love of the Force, give your brother a hug and make him stop looking at me like that.”

Rex smirks, the bastard, and glances at Obi-Wan. “I would, General, but I think yours might murder you while my back is turned.”

Now it’s Obi-Wan’s turn to blink in confusion. His terrible blank look fades somewhat as he looks between them for hostility or anger and finds only camaraderie. 

“As if,” says Anakin. If the subject wasn’t so serious, he’d be having a great time pulling one over on Obi-Wan this way. “He’s put far too much effort into teaching me just to kill me now. And I’m a little offended at your lack of faith in my fighting skills.”

Rex shrugs. “You’re obviously shinier than he is, Sir, and Cody’s a _di’kut_ but he’s better than me at hand-to-hand.”

“Rex!” Cody hisses. He’s gone from furious to both scandalized and angry. Anakin ducks a little farther behind Rex and nudges him again.

“Hug. Now,” he mutters, but Rex is already talking.

“It’s okay, vod,” he says, hands in the air and moving forward slowly as if he’s surrendering. “He’s safe, he vouched for your General, and it’s not what it looks like.”

Cody is standing stiffly, looking worried and shooting quick glances at Obi-Wan. He does close his eyes in something like relief, though, when Rex presses their foreheads together. Anakin suddenly feels like an intruder to a very private moment and shuffles awkwardly until they pull back.

Obi-Wan is still looking between Anakin and Rex. “Anakin,” he says, very precisely. “What the kriff is going on?” _How have you won your man’s trust more thoroughly than I have won mine with these kinds of battle reports?_ is what he really wants to know, Anakin thinks. Conveniently, the answers are nearly the same.

He smiles. “Did you know that in most of the galaxy freedom is a euphemism for death? It took me ages to figure out how that worked, since it’s the opposite on Tatooine. Our word for death can also mean freedom.”

Cody gets it first. He looks long and hard at Rex, who nods, then turns to Anakin with a formal salute, just out of Obi-Wan’s sight. His face remains hard and suspicious, but Anakin deserves that, he thinks, and gives the smallest of nods back.

“They’re deserting,” says Obi-Wan seconds later, as though he’s just found new meaning in the universe. 

Anakin shrugs, but his smile is sharp. “There might be a bit of cultural misunderstanding going on in the reports I’m filling out. I _meant_ to notify the Republic that the slaves they’ve unlawfully trapped in a war are escaping, obviously.”

“Obviously,” says Obi-Wan. He actually laughs. “I’ll be sure to inform the council that your reckless attitude is doing you no favors, then. Perhaps lower your casualty rate a bit or you might get pulled for additional training. Your number of lost clones rivals the council’s stats, and no offense, Padawan, but they are on much harder missions than you.”

“Noted,” he says. 

Cody is staring at Obi-Wan as though he’s never seen him before. He probably pulled the unerringly proper act, Anakin guesses, and tried to keep a respectful distance from the men. Personally, he’s found it much more effective to eat in the mess, learn their names, and generally break all the Kaminoans’ rules, but outright rebellion isn’t exactly Obi-Wan’s style.

Anakin finally steps up next to Rex and holds out his arm in greeting. “Pleased to meet you, Commander Cody, and thanks for having my ori’vod’s back.”

Cody takes a moment to assess his expression, his arm, and Rex’s smile before he clasps Anakin’s forearm. “Any time, General Skywalker.”

Anakin pulls back after a long moment. “Okay, enough of that. You two go catch up or talk to the squad that is totally not out inspecting our men right now. I want to bug _Richakku_ here into having a snack and a chat before he leaves.”

“Yes, Sir.” Rex causally salutes. Cody looks to Obi-Wan for an approving nod before he salutes as well, much more stiffly, and follows his brother out of the room.

As soon as they’re gone Obi-Wan deflates into a nearby chair, waving Anakin down beside him. “Force, Anakin,” he says. “I was so--you have no idea how glad I am right now.”

“I think I have some idea,” says Anakin. “I thought for a second you might actually murder me when you stepped off the shuttle.”

“It sounded like you were wasting lives for no reason!”

Anakin holds up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t say you weren’t justified, it was just terrifying.”

“Well it was supposed to be.”

They lapse into silence and Anakin takes a moment to just look Obi-Wan over. The war hasn’t been raging long, comparatively, but Anakin can already see the bags growing under his eyes and the endless sadness of losing men under his command dragging at him like a chain. He knows he doesn’t look much better and wants, suddenly, to rest his head on Obi-Wan’s shoulder and have this all go away.

“How are you handling this, Anakin?” says Obi-Wan, heavier. 

“It’s hard, but Rex has been a lifesaver,” Anakin says. He’d like to pretend he’s an unaffected hotshot Jedi, but this isn’t the time for deflections or lies. Obi-Wan always sees right through them anyway. “I don’t know if I’d be managing without him.”

“I am curious as to how, exactly, you managed to get through to him. All my men tiptoe around me as if I’m about to eat them.”

Anakin feels old. “They were born slaves, Obi-Wan, even if no one calls them that. I called him in for a meeting on the first day and told him point blank that none of the men would be harmed by me or under my watch if I could help it. And then I asked him for help because Jedi aren’t taught to lead karking armies and I really don’t know what I’m doing.”

Obi-Wan lets out a tiny chuckle, but his eyes are serious. “It was that simple?” 

“I had the distinct advantage of personally understanding their position, and I treated Rex as an equal from the start.” Anakin raises one shoulder and drops it again. He doesn’t exactly want to share the entirety of the little heart-to-heart he had with his Captain. “What about you, Obi-Wan? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” says his teacher, like a liar. Anakin waits, unimpressed.

It doesn’t take long to crack him. “We’ve been isolated out here on the front,” Obi-Wan says. “I admit, I was glad for a reason to see you at all until I discovered the reason for the intervention. Perhaps if I can build up a rapport with my officers, like you seem to have done, it will be better.”

“They’re good men,” says Anakin.

“Yes.”

The silence stretches, tired but comfortable. Anakin does wind up resting his head against Obi-Wan’s shoulder, and Obi-Wan puts a heavy arm around him and leans their heads together. The chairs weren’t made for this position, but Anakin ignores that discomfort in favor of just sitting with his best friend and letting the universe pass by for a few minutes.

…

The council sends them to Tatooine. _Tatooine._ To lend Republic aid to a fierfekking _Hutt_ who got his son kidnapped. Anakin honestly isn’t sure whether he’s glad for the chance to see Mom and sneak some extra people out or livid that the Council doesn’t know about that and is kriffing sending him anyway. Are they _trying_ to drive him out of the Order?

Rex rests a hand on his shoulder, which is nice for about three seconds before a random pod skids down next to their landing site and a dark-skinned, coltish Togruta stumbles out. Her monterals are stubby and striped white and blue. She has two lightsabers strapped to her belt and the skimpiest little outfit he’s ever seen a youngling wear.

“Ah,” says Obi-Wan, somewhere behind him. “I had discussed Padawans with Yoda and Mace recently, I wonder if they decided to send me one.” His voice is controlled and even, but Anakin can feel a tendril of annoyance at the lack of communication. He forces down his own sudden unreasonable jealousy. Obi-Wan is his teacher, but that doesn’t mean Anakin owns him and his relationships. He’s a grown man now, not a child clinging to Obi-Wan’s robes.

The girl dusts herself off mock-casually and looks around with huge eyes and an excited smile. She must not get out much. No one is that happy to see endless rolling dunes of sand interspersed with tiny brick huts, beaten down by the daily grind and the endless heat of two suns. Anakin doesn’t even have anything white to change into, which is annoying on a couple of levels. His clothes will be boiling and he’ll look like an ignorant spacer with credits where his heart should be.

The girl eventually sets her sights on him and Obi-Wan and steps closer, giving them a respectful bow as well as she can manage when she’s sunk into the sand up to her ankles. Togruta have denser bodies than humans, which is not exactly an advantage on a sand planet.

She pops up quickly, still grinning, and waves. “Hi! I’m Ahsoka Tano.”

“Greetings, Ahsoka Tano,” says Obi-Wan. “May I inquire as to why, exactly, you are here?”

Her smile falls slightly and she blinks. “Didn’t they tell you I was coming?”

“We have received no correspondence from the Jedi since they assigned us this mission several days ago,” Obi-Wan says.

“Oh.” She looks suddenly more nervous, though she hides it well, and shoots a quick, beseeching look at Anakin. He has no idea what she wants from him. “Well, Master Yoda sent me here. He said I was assigned to be the Padawan of Anakin Skywalker.”

The world comes to a screeching halt around him and Anakin nearly chokes on the sandy air of his home planet. What is he supposed to do with a child? He’s still basically a child! And how, he wonders hysterically, is he going to pull off his act of talking slaves into his rooms so he can transform them into real citizens on the sly with a Padawan around?

Out loud he says, “No.”

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan gives him a Look. “She’s traveled a long way. Let’s all go inside and get this thing worked out.”

They retreat back to the ship, which provides relief from the bright sun and grinding sand, if nothing else. They also get away from the curious eyes and ears of the men. Anakin is definitely going to be teased about this later and he is not looking forward to it.

“Listen,” Ahsoka is saying, “why don’t we just comm Master Yoda and ask him?”

“We can’t,” Obi-Wan tells her. “Signals get weird this far out from the core. Either we’d need a more powerful device or Master Yoda would have to call us first.”

Anakin deliberately does not think about the souped up pair of comms he and Mom both own. “We don’t have time for this,” he says. “The longer the… child is out of contact the worse our chances become for a rescue.”

Ahsoka seems desperately unhappy about it, but Obi-Wan just sighs. “I hate to admit it, but you’re right. Ahsoka can stay on board here until we’ve completed the mission, and then we can spend more time on the issue.”

“I can help!” she protests.

“Absolutely not.” Anakin doesn’t mean for his voice to come out so hard and flat. He isn’t sorry about it, even when she looks at him with hurt, teary eyes in a heartbroken face. Okay maybe, he’s a little sorry.

“But…”

“No.” He looks at Obi-Wan, sees the incomprehension there. Kriff. He does not want to have this conversation, but someone has to tell her. “Listen, kid,” he says, a little more gently this time. “This is nothing personal, okay? But we’re on Tatooine and you are a young Togruta girl wearing an outfit that would blend in in the worst possible way.”

Obi-Wan pales. Anakin can see him berating himself for not realizing from all the way across the room. Ahsoka still doesn’t get it. Instead she seems furious. Her fists clench like she’s going to punch someone and her face flushes a blotchy orange color.

“These are native Shili styles! And what does being a Togruta girl have to do with anything?” 

Well at least she’s got some fight in her. But if Anakin’s childhood wasn’t sheltered enough, this girl is the complete opposite of that. He takes a deep breath. “Calm down, kid. I can tell you my reasoning the nice way or the blunt way. Which one do you want?”

“Blunt,” she says through gritted teeth.

He shrugs. “A large part of Tatooine’s economy is built around slaves and sex. Togrutas are very popular, and so are young girls, and your clothes are revealing. You’d have every trader and market owner on the street either trying to kidnap you or trying to buy you, and I am not going to be responsible for putting a child in that situation no matter how cool you think going on a mission might be.”

He can see her face cycling through different reactions to that. Shock. Disbelief. Anger. Resignation. Horror. “But,” she finally says, “but slavery is illegal in the Republic. It has been for centuries.”

Obi-Wan clears his throat, which gives Anakin time to choke back his bitter, bitter laughter. She doesn’t need to be subjected to that either. “Unfortunately, Tatooine is not exactly a full member of the Republic, and there are a number of places that make a habit of ignoring Republic law. There is not much we can do without a full taskforce and a lot of time and money, none of which ever seem to be available.”

She crosses her arms indignantly. “Well maybe the Republic should come out here and take its head out of its collective--”

Obi-Wan coughs, but Anakin cracks a grin. “Bit snippy, are you?”

She huffs. “Only because this is completely idiotic, _Skyguy.”_

Obi-Wan looks ready to intervene again, but Anakin just punches the door open and waves her through. “C’mon, Snips, I’ll introduce you to your babysitters before we go.”

“Babysitters? I’m fourteen!” she screeches. Despite himself, Anakin likes her. He doesn’t know if there’s any way in Mandalore he could care for a teenager, but if he could he would probably pick this one.

The mission involves several unexpected twists including extra explosions, a freaky Dark assassin lady, and a fakeout baby switch, but in the end they manage to return the little slug to the bigger slug without sustaining serious injury. Anakin sneaks away afterward to walk a pair of women out the backdoor of a sleazy restaurant and down the street to the Whitesun house without arousing any suspicion. One is pink-skinned with smooth brown hair and a tight, high-collared dress that is perhaps meant to look both wholesome and enticing. The other has green skin and lekku much longer than little Ahsoka’s. She wears mounds of dramatic makeup with decorative swirls and shadows that conceal her features well.

He uses subtle hand signals to indicate that he’s there to help them. None of them speak until Beru lets them into her house. Arrogant spacers don’t talk to the women they purchase for the night, after all. Anakin has played many parts in order to sneak slaves away, but the pretend _depur_ is the worst of all.

Beru Whitesun is around his age, and one of the best Singers in town. There weren’t many to learn from, but Beru knows exactly what she’s doing. Owen, who is still working up the courage to court her, informed him once that she got the chips out of every one of her twelve siblings in the span of one night. Anakin believes it.

“Who first?” she says in Amatakka. The language of secrecy and _dukkra_ is the only thing they speak at moments like this. Beru holds up a scanner built from trash and scraps. Makeup woman sets her shoulders and steps forward.

“I am. Solie will watch.”

The woman with the high collar nods. “I want to learn.”

“Then you shall,” says Beru, quickly running the scanner up and down until it beeps above the right shoulder. Anakin winces. No one else does.

Beru guides the green woman to lie down on a woven mat, patterned with reds to hide the blood and thick to keep sand from the wound. “What is your name?”

“Reya Ekkreth,” she says.

“Sister,” Anakin can’t help but say. Reya and Solie look his way while Beru prepares her surgery knife. “My name is Anakin Ekkreth.” On second thought, maybe he should have given her the name Umakkar Nittu, but… well, that name hasn’t yet been connected to a face for more than a handful of people and he’d like to keep it that way.

“Well met,” says Reya. “Singer, are we ready to begin?”

“We are,” Beru says. Solie studies the technique, but Anakin doesn’t watch as she puts the knife to skin and begins to sing a strong, steady melody that drowns out Reya’s cries of pain.

It takes a long hour and a half to finish with both of them, and darkness has truly fallen by the time he takes them to the ship, slipping from shadow to shadow and finally thankful for his dark clothes. There is a reason that the night is known to bring freedom.

“There it is,” he says, Amatakka rolling off his tongue. “If you wish I will sneak you into my rooms and leave you there for the night. When we fly away you can come out and we will drop you off on a planet closer to the core.”

“If not?” says Solie.

“Then I will go alone and retrieve fake identichips for both of you,” he says. “You can stay here as free beings, but the risk would be high.”

The women glance at each other, exchanging looks and gestures too fast for him to follow. Reya turns to face him.

“We will go with you,” she says. “How do we sneak aboard?”

Anakin allows himself a small smile. “Hopefully that won’t be a problem,” he says, and explains the plan.

It isn’t difficult to get on board. The men on lookout see them, of course, but Anakin just swings an arm over each of them suggestively and shoots a wink at the man on duty. Shiver by name, he’s almost certain. The women huddle into him from either side, either out of fear or genuinely good acting, and it gets them all the way back to his rooms.

Then everything falls apart.

“Hey! Sorry to surprise you, but Master Kenobi said I could--” Ahsoka looks up, freezes, and glances between him and the women with wide, horrified eyes. He feels them flinch under his hold at the word _master_ and internally curses Jedi customs. It’s not the first time he’s done so. “Oh my Force, Skyguy, are you…?”

He can see her putting the pieces together and winces when he realizes that these ladies exactly fit the description of slaves he gave her earlier. They are, of course, slaves, but the kid doesn’t seem to realize that he’s not about to hurt them in any way. Her face transforms from embarrassed disgust to absolute fury in the space of about two seconds. 

“When I tell Master Kenobi--” she snarls, stalking toward him. If she wasn’t a spindly fourteen year old it would be much more threatening.

“Woah, woah, woah, Snips, let me explain.” He immediately pulls back from both women and raises his hands, both to show his innocence and stop her from punching him out of the way.

“Explain what, exactly?” she says. Her big eyes are narrowed into slits and her fists are clenched so tight she might cut her own palms open.

Anakin takes a deep breath and tries to let go of his frustration. “Outside,” he says. “Just… Reya, top shelf of the bookcase, look on the right. There should be chips from my guy and a datapad with places where I have contacts that you might want to check out. There’s a bed and a fresher through there. You’d better be furious with me in the morning.”

“We will,” says Solie, as Reya strides away. 

He nods, grabs Ahsoka by her bony elbow, and ushers them both out of the room. The door locks securely behind them.

“What the actual kark--”

“Language,” he says, as if he wasn’t using the foulest Huttese curses known to man at the age of nine. They disappear into an empty meeting space and he closes the door carefully. Then he looks into her promisingly angry eyes and hopes this child is trustworthy because at this point he doesn’t have much of a choice.

He speaks, low, quick, and clear. “Okay, kid, here’s the deal: I came back to the ship with a pair of _astonishingly_ lovely ladies. They’re cool, but things have been so crazy that I might just up and forget to bring them off the ship before we enter hyperspace. Luckily, if that happens they will rain down fury upon me before we reach our checkpoint, so we can drop them off on any Core or Mid-Rim world between here and Coruscant where they can find a friend.”

She bites her lip, thinking. “What were those chips you mentioned?”

This girl is too annoyingly perceptive for her own good. “Not a lot of people on Tatooine have all their... documentation in order.” He shrugs. “I know a guy.”

She gets it. He can see it on her face clear as day, and she uncrosses her arms with an apologetic smile. “Master Kenobi told me I could steal your room since you weren’t back yet and they don’t have one for me. He said it would be ‘improper’ to just steal one of the empty bunks in the clone barracks.” she actually makes air quotes with her fingers, which is amazing.

Anakin grimaces. “How much sleep do you need?”

“I usually get about four or five hours at a time, twice in an average cycle.”

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, we can work with that. There isn’t anyone sleeping in the medbay tonight, so let's set an alarm for five hours from now and hope to the Force no one comes in. I can function on that much.”

“Good plan,” says Ahsoka. “Partners?” She holds out a hand firmly, like this is how she’d seal a deal with other initiates, and then remembers who she’s talking to. Her face goes blotchy and she starts to pull back, but Anakin just grins and gives her hand a firm shake.

“Partners in crime,” he agrees.

Their campout is successful with no one the wiser. Anakin is groggy and annoyed with only five hours of sleep, but he tries not to show it as he walks about the ship, congratulating the men and waiting for them to shoot off into hyperspace.

He’s on the bridge with Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Rex, and Cody, discussing their next steps, but he does a double take when he sees Reya angrily stalking forward in the light of day with all the makeup washed off her green skin. She can’t be more than three years older than Ahsoka, and his respect for her ticks up a few more notches. Solie is at her shoulder, visibly grinding her sharper-than-human teeth. Both of them are covered in a couple of spare brown robes Anakin keeps on the pretense of needing for Obi-Wan. His teacher is always losing them, so the quartermaster had just laughed and agreed when he’d asked. 

Recklessly bold, Reya marches over and slaps him across the face. He feigns a guilty realization and remains still while she does it, even though it stings like a sandstorm. “Did you forget about us, you _alask-_ headed, _dia-_ hearted _boc’ara_ bastard?!”*

“No!” he splutters, very aware of their audience. He doesn’t know Reya’s native language, but her furious, insulting tone is universal. “Of course not, I just had to get up early and… uh…”

“And fly the ship away from our home planet,” says Solie. She looks cooly at the stars flashing past, eyes narrowed. Anakin realizes for the first time that she’s probably older than him by a good several years. What must Obi-Wan and the clones be thinking, if they believe that he wanted both these women in one night?

Ahsoka gapes, apparently mortified at the very idea of Jedi Knight Skywalker sneaking two women onto the ship. He’s proud of her already. “What is this?”

“Anakin,” says Obi-Wan. The word alone carries years of frustration. He’s already pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Okay, fine,” he says, spreading his arms wide. “I forgot to walk these lovely ladies home and now they’re stuck on the ship. Happy?”

“Not even a little bit,” Obi-Wan says. Ahsoka clutches her stomach like she might throw up, a queasy expression on her face. When they make eye contact behind Obi-Wan’s back she gives him a wink. _Oh,_ Anakin thinks, suppressing a smile. _This might just work after all._

“See if I ever sleep on someone else’s ship again,” Reya actually growls. 

Solie hooks their arms together, presenting a united front in clashing pink and green. “You’d better be able to drop us off!” she says. “I have a friend on Alderaan that I’ve been meaning to visit.”

“Of course,” says Obi-Wan, looking highly relieved that she’s requested a planet near their flight path. They manage to re-program in the proper coordinates and the two women leave to sulk in Anakin’s quarters. Everyone’s performances are so good that he’s hardly even annoyed when Obi-Wan lectures him all the way to Alderaan.

When the ramp lowers everyone is ready. Ahsoka shakes Solie’s hand, passing on a map to a nearby organization dedicated to aid and reform. The brown haired woman smiles at her, then makes eye contact with Anakin a few steps away. _“Arni’soyacho, Ekkreth,”_ she says. “Thank you.”

Just like that they melt back into the busy street. Anakin wishes all his operations ran so smoothly.

Ahsoka steps up beside him, catching glimpses of Reya cutting through the crowd like a blade with Solie dragging behind her. He has a feeling Solie is calling out directions from the map, but Reya is younger and bolder, and will never let Solie go first into danger if she can help it. For a moment he feels oddly nostalgic for his own Padawan days. 

Ahsoka brushes against him lightly. “They’re free,” she says with wonder.

“Yeah, Snips, they are.” He hesitates before putting a hand on her shoulder. “You did good.”

She looks at him slyly, with buried hope shining in the Force. “Good enough to keep up with you?”

He laughs, just a little. “You never would’ve made it as Obi-Wan’s student, he’d train all the fun out of you. But I think Master Yoda might have been right. Ahsoka Tano, how do you feel about getting up to all sorts of shenanigans as my Padawan?”

“I would love to.” Her smile is more brilliant than twin suns combined. “Master Skywalker.”

He shudders, exaggerates it to hide the flinch underneath. “Rule one: never call me that again.”

“You got it, Skyguy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Something like, “You sand-headed, coldhearted, idiotic bastard!”  
> **Arni’soyacho = extreme gratitude
> 
> Thanks for reading! Leave your thoughts below if you're so inclined <3

**Author's Note:**

> *I made up this Amatakka word. The others were all from fialleril herself at some point.  
> **except the names, I made all of those up too.


End file.
